


Catalepsis

by LostCol



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epilepsy, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I'm pretty sure it's lighter than the tags make it sound, Love, M/M, Nightmares, POV Brian Kinney (Queer as Folk), POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 03, Seizures, Sick Character, Sickfic, Smut, Some Humor, What-If, i say 'medical emergency' but i promise it's nothing too dramatic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28614738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostCol/pseuds/LostCol
Summary: What if, a few weeks after Justin left Ethan, Justin had a medical emergency at Babylon and Brian happened to be there?
Relationships: Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)
Comments: 221
Kudos: 215





	1. I'm not going anywhere, Sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been a sucker for these post-Ethan how-else-could-Justin-and-Brian-have-gotten-back-together fics. This is canon through several weeks after Justin and Ethan's breakup, before Justin gets the internship at Vanguard.  
> This is my first multi-chapter fic and I have a decent amount of it written so far, so I'm hoping to post about once a week or so (but between work and my personal life I can't commit to a specific schedule, so I'm not even going to try).  
> Everything here is mine, but the seizure angle was inspired by LaVieEnRose's [The One Where Justin Loses His Hearing series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1026162) (which you should definitely read if you haven't), and while I have slightly better-than-average knowledge of the subject because of my job (and researching anything I don't know), I don't claim to be an expert.  
> Tags will be added to as we go, and the rating will go up at some point. ;)  
> Enjoy!

I was getting blown in the back room for the fourth time that week, and the guy sucking my dick was one of the hotter tricks I’d picked up in a while – longish blonde hair, flawless skin, defined muscles but not too bulky – yeah, yeah, I know. Moving on – and he had excellent technique. So, I wasn’t thrilled when Todd rushed by me, did a double take, and doubled back.

“Hey Brian.”

I rolled my head toward him and raised my eyebrows.

“So, Justin—"

Oh god. Not right now.

“—he needs help, something’s really wrong. He—he looks like he might be having a seizure or something.”

The fuck? “What the fuck?”

“I know you guys aren’t together anymore, but I don’t know if he’s here with any—"

“Where is he?” I asked, reluctantly pushing the trick’s head away from my slowly wilting cock.

“At the end of the hall, I’ll show you.”

Muttering “gotta go” to the trick, I followed Todd down the hallway, buttoning my jeans and trying not to worry, and wondering what exactly he meant by ‘seizure’. Remember that little hand tremor Justin has that he insisted on telling people was just his hand getting tired? Yeah, it’s a focal seizure. The bashing left him with post-traumatic focal seizures that, because apparently the universe was in a particularly twisted mood that day, only affected his right hand. His drawing hand. Until then, anyway. Todd’s panic would be seriously overblown if Justin was just dealing with a hand tremor.

Even if he _was_ jerking some guy off at the time and snapped his dick in half.

We reached the end of the hallway and Todd pushed through a handful of guys muttering nervously to each other, gathered around something on the floor. Fuck.

I pushed through after Todd and there he was, slumped against the wall, sweaty and sexy in his tight club clothes. The entire right side of his body, from his shoulder to his foot, was shaking the way I’d only seen his hand shake.

_Oh, Sunshine._

All thoughts of my aborted blowjob forgotten, I squatted in front of him and cupped my hand under his chin, lifting until his huge, glassy eyes met mine. He looked terrified and sort of out of it, and I could tell the moment my face registered by the way the terror lessoned slightly, so I gave him a small, hopefully reassuring smile and squeezed his leg, then left my hand resting there.

Back when he was bashed, Justin’s neurologist – because he needs a fucking neurologist now – warned him that it’s pretty common for people with a seizure condition to have seizures other than the kind they primarily experience. Sometimes it’s a one-off, and sometimes it’s the condition evolving, and there’s no real way to know until – if – Justin has one.

It was equally likely that Justin would never experience anything other than the focal seizures in his hand, but that dream was dying in front of me on the sticky back room floor.

Justin and I did a ton of research after his neurologist dropped that bomb on us so we’d know what to expect and what to do if he had a bigger one, and after Justin moved out, I’d tracked down the fiddler – playing for a pittance on a street corner, as usual – and told him to read up on seizures. I didn’t give a shit that Justin would be pissed; it was stupid and dangerous not to give the guy he was fucking living with a heads up, and I knew Sunshine well enough to guess that he hadn’t. And it turned out I was right; by the way Ethan sputtered and entirely failed to hide the panic in his eyes, he obviously hadn’t known.

Back at Babylon, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do or how sick he was going to be after, but I had the presence of mind to ask Todd if he knew when it had started, and I was grateful when I turned around to see he’d shooed the audience away. Justin’s not a fucking spectacle. He thought a minute or so before he found me, so I was pretty sure it ended up lasting somewhere between two and three minutes-ish total. Definitely long enough to mess with his brain.

When it finally stopped, Justin dropped his forehead to his knees and hugged them to his chest while I squeezed the back of his neck and scrambled to figure out what to do. Before anything useful came to mind, he looked up suddenly and grabbed my hand, and with tears streaming down his face and his eyes boring into mine, he whispered “don’t leave” in this desperate little voice that was like a knife in my heart. I still hope it was just the postictal confusion that had him thinking it was even in the realm of possibility that I would abandon him on the floor of the back room, sick, and scared, and in pain. And probably confused enough to get himself lost and murdered on the way home, knowing his luck.

“I’m not going anywhere, Sunshine,” I said as gently as I could, running my hand down the back of his head (and keeping the “Christ, I’m not a fucking monster” to myself). I realize ‘gentle’ isn’t exactly a primary character trait of mine, but he was crying and he had this lost look on his face, and between that and the dim lighting (which of course was glinting off his soft, shiny hair, as if I needed the torture), he looked about 15. And, you know. I’m not a monster.

He made no move to stand up, but I knew sitting there in filth on the freezing, hard cement wasn’t doing him any good, so I made the executive decision to get him out of there and gripped him under his elbows to pull him to his feet. His right leg almost crumpled when he put his weight on it, so I tucked him into my side and he let his head fall against my shoulder as we made our way out of the club. He was still crying a little, and he started apologizing to me – for what, exactly? Having a seizure? – once we got outside. He kept stumbling, my arm tightening every time he tripped, and he looked like he was about to drop. His eyes were closed by the time we got to my car, and he fell asleep while I was buckling him in, his body relaxing against my hands. Shit.

Ideally, I obviously would have asked him before bringing him back to the loft, but he was dead asleep and I didn’t know where Daphne lived – I knew that was where he’d been staying – and, I wanted to keep an eye on him. He doesn’t need to go to the hospital unless he hurts himself during a seizure or doesn’t come out of it the way he should, but his doctor had stressed that someone should watch him in the immediate aftermath of a larger one, just to be safe. And give her a call, but we could take care of that in the morning.

I managed to get up to the loft (into the building, into and out of the freight elevator, through the heavy loft door) half dragging and half carrying Justin’s mostly-still-asleep dead weight, and laid him on the bed before locking up. I set some water and a bottle of aspirin next to his side of the bed, then I pulled off his shoes and pants and put him under the covers, all of which he slept through.

I reeked of my normal post-Babylon bouquet of sweat, booze, and sex, so I took a quick shower before putting on sweats and lying down on top of the comforter next to Justin. His right hand was twitching a little where it rested on the comforter, so I pulled it to my chest and very, very gently uncurled and stretched out his fingers. Having him next to me in my bed, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to the last time we were there together. When I hadn’t been able to admit to myself how terrified I was that he already seemed to have one foot out the door. And no wonder; I’d been such an asshole. Looking back on it, I couldn’t believe he’d stayed for as long as he had. I mean, I’d told him, _I’d told him_ , what I was capable of, but I’d known, even then, that he needed more. And he was just a kid. Still was, really, I thought looking over at him.

He’d curled up a little and was snoring softly, like he always does when his allergies are acting up, and he looked so young and peaceful (like he always does when he’s sleeping). I brushed a leftover tear off his flushed cheek and jesus, I’d forgotten how soft his skin is; and suddenly I missed him so goddamn much my eyes welled up.

Christ. I must’ve had more to drink than I thought. 

*

Justin woke up around 4 a.m. with a pounding headache, which we knew was super common after seizures. I’d been sleeping on and off, but I kept jerking awake, disoriented and anxious, so I was mostly awake when he rolled onto his back and opened his eyes.

“Hey,” I said softly, trying not to startle him.

He startled anyway – hey, I tried – and turned his head toward me, and I could just make out the confusion on his face in the moonlight.

“Hey,” he said, like he had absofuckinglutely no idea what was going on. Great.

“How do you feel?” I asked, sitting up.

“Like shit. Jesus, my head.”

“There’s aspirin and water for you,” I said, gesturing to where I’d set them down. “Do you remember what happened?” I asked, and then realized how he might take that and quickly added, “You’re okay.”

“I remember the back room… I assume that’s where I ran into you?” He cast a wry look my way. Touché, kid. But his face changed as something occurred to him, and he suddenly sounded panicked. “Oh shit, what happened? Did someone—”

“No, you’re fine,” I cut in, not wanting him to spiral. I rested my hand on his chest and took a deep breath. “You had a seizure. In the back room.”

“I had a…”

“Yeah. A hell of a lot bigger than anything I’ve seen you have before. Have you been having bigger seizures?” Frankly, I was pissed that his condition might have worsened and he hadn’t told me. And I know, I was well aware that we weren’t together and he had no obligation to keep me in the loop, or even, I realized, any reason to think that I’d care.

But how could he think I wouldn’t fucking care?

“No, I… just my hand. Like always.”

“Well…” I sighed, hating that I had to tell him this, “this was… not that.”

I got him to take an aspirin and told him what had happened, everything from Todd rushing up to me to stretching out his hand while he slept. He’d struggled so much with not remembering the bashing that I made a point to include as much detail as I remembered.

“So, I was… I didn’t…”

“What?”

“I mean, I was myself the whole time?”

“Well we weren’t shooting the shit or anything, but yeah, you were yourself. Conscious and aware and everything. But you passed out – fell asleep—" I rephrased at the look on his face “– as soon as I got you in the car. Memory loss is really common, remember.” I winced at the insensitive phrasing but he didn’t seem to notice. He lay there staring at the ceiling for so long that I’d started to wonder if he was just going to fall back asleep when he muttered “fuck,” and looked back at me. “I remember some of that. You sat with me?”

I nodded and he smiled a little. “Thank you.”

I shrugged in acknowledgement and kept watching him. Did he think I wouldn’t have? Christ, I wished I could just tell him that I was still fucking there for him. That I didn’t know how not to be.

He was quiet for a while longer and then his eyes slid closed, and he was slurring a little when he asked, “do you mind… if I go back to sleep? I’m so fucking tired.”

He was asleep before I could answer.

*

I slept for a few more hours, but I was still restless. I have enough self-awareness to know that I struggle with not being in control of any and all situations I find myself in – shocking, I know – and I was kind of freaked out not knowing what to do.

How was I supposed to help him if I didn’t know what was going on? Did he even want my help? Did that even matter?

*

When I woke up for the millionth time and it was finally light out, I let out a relieved breath. Justin and I were curled around each other and his breath was hot on my neck. I didn’t know how we’d ended up that way, but it felt really fucking good, and I could already tell how shitty I was going to feel when he walked back out the door. But that was a problem for later.

Before I could make myself pull away, Justin wriggled against me and squeezed his arms around my waist, sighing a little and breathing out “Brian” before he blinked his eyes open. He squinted in confusion looking at his arms wrapped around my body, and then realization dawned and he tilted his head up to look at my face. He blushed when he met my eyes and immediately rolled away with a nervous laugh, saying, “Fuck. I thought I was dreaming,” with an embarrassed smile. He stared determinedly at the ceiling, and I watched his blush deepen when he realized the implication behind his words.

“Do you remember what’s going on?” I asked with a chuckle, thoroughly enjoying the flush on his cheeks (and the reason behind it) but choosing not to comment. My charitable act for the day.

“The seizure, yeah.”

He rolled back onto his side, propping himself up on one arm. “Thanks again for saving me. Again,” he said, patting my chest once.

“Saving’s a bit dramatic,” I said, trying hard to override my instinct to respond to his sincerity with sarcasm. Steering the conversation away from – _shudder_ – sentiment, I reminded him to “make sure you call your neurologist later. Remember, she said she wants to know if you have a bigger seizure.”

“Right. Thanks,” he said, wriggling and fidgeting a little, pushing his bangs off his face and running his hand nervously through his hair as I lay there wishing with a ridiculous pang that it were my hand. 

“How’s your head?”

“A lot better, actually. I think I just needed to sleep it off.”

I nodded but he wasn’t looking at me. “Do you want… some coffee?” I asked nervously, then cleared my throat in embarrassment. Christ, what was the worst that could happen? He says no?

“I don’t know if I should, after that headache… Shit… _Shit_ …” He was speaking pretty quietly by the end, and I could see the gears turning. I gave his arm a squeeze and got up to take a piss, giving him a minute to himself.

And giving myself a minute to let the guilt wash over me, because let’s not kid ourselves here. The seizures were a result of the bashing, and the bashing was a result of… me. My presence at Justin’s prom. My presence in Justin’s life. And for what? I didn’t even make him happy, in the end. No matter how many people assure me ad nauseum that it wasn’t my fault, and no matter how many times I brush them off with an irritated “I know” or “fuck off” or just a sneer, depending on the mood du jour, I will always feel this guilt.

I’ll probably never fucking tell him this, but Justin’s one of those people whose presence in the world – his very existence – improves it, and he did nothing, absofuckinglutely _nothing_ , to deserve that kind of vicious hatred. Yeah he’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s really such a sweet kid, so fucking full of life. And now he’s permanently disabled and there’s a whole part of his personality, the post-traumatic part that still has the occasional panic attack in crowds and has to work harder to work out people’s feelings, intentions, motivations, that was never supposed to be there.

If only Hobbs had come after my worthless ass instead. Even if he’d killed me, it would have been a much smaller loss.

When I managed to break through the rolling waves of guilt and fury and pull myself together, I heard Justin talking in the bedroom. I went back out in time to hear him making an MRI appointment with his neurologist. My stomach dropped when it hit me that he was nervous enough to call information to get her number instead of just waiting until he got home. I tried to arrange my features in an expression of reassuring nonchalance, but I questioned whether I’d pulled it off when he hung up the phone, looked at me, and immediately said, “She said there’s no reason to worry, it’s just to make sure nothing major’s changed in my brain. Apparently this kind of thing is pretty common.”

It bugged me that he was trying to reassure me; I hate when he makes his health about anyone but himself. When he assures people that he’s fine when he’s not so they won’t worry or feel uncomfortable. But maybe he was trying to reassure himself too, so I let it go, smiling and saying, “I know.”

He just nodded and picked at the comforter, looking at me uncertainly.

“You want something to eat? Do you feel nauseous at all?” Christ, I was being nice to him.

I was almost glad we’d slept so badly, because it meant we were up early enough that I had some time before I had to leave for work. And I couldn’t just… what would I have done, asked him to leave? I’d have told him to hang out, eat something, sleep some more; but I knew he wouldn’t.

He didn’t feel sick, so we went down to the kitchen and he sat at the counter while I made eggs and toast and poured two glasses of orange juice. I’d gotten into the habit of keeping some basics at the loft for Gus, which is what I told Justin when he raised an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic domesticity. _And_ for the occasional nights that I didn’t feel like takeout and wasn’t in the mood to run into anyone, himself included, at the diner, which I obviously did not tell him.

He ate sitting at the counter and I ate standing up, and it was awkwardly obvious that neither of us wanted to deal with sitting at the table together, like we had a million times before he moved out. A tad too domestic. We ate silently, and when he was almost done, he cleared his throat and said he had some projects he had to get back to – apparently he had no Friday classes that semester – then hesitated. He obviously had more to say, but I just keep eating; he’d spit it out when he was ready. He finished his food slowly, drained the last of his juice, set down his glass, and finally asked, “Do you think I could shower here before I leave?” He blushed and let out a nervous, breathy chuckle. “And you could like, make sure I don’t die in there? Daphne’s away on a school trip, so…”

He trailed off with a shrug and an unwelcome wave of sympathy hit me. Fuck. He was nervous about having another seizure, and he was nervous about asking for my help. He didn’t think he had the right to anymore, and if I said no and told him to fuck off, which we both knew I had every right to do, he’d be left alone in this. No Brian. No Ethan. And Daphne wasn’t even there. And that was fucking terrifying for him to contemplate, the stakes were so goddamn high for him if I just didn’t give a shit anymore. I may be the deal-with-my-shit-by-myself-even-to-the-point-of-cutting-people-out-of-my-life type, but Justin is not. I was sure he’d let his mom or Debbie help him if he absolutely needed it, but I knew he wouldn’t go to them with this. He’d just be scared, and lonely, and sad, and god, my stomach clenched picturing him showering at Daphne’s crappy apartment, nervous and rushing and so, so aware that if he fell, no one would be there. No one would know he needed help.

Fuck.

I turned and put my plate in the sink as an excuse to hide my face, and he started talking again, nervously. “I know you have to get to work—"

“Shower away,” I interrupted, turning back around. “But you should probably just boil yourself after sitting on the floor of the back room.”

He laughed in relief. “Hey wait,” he said, still laughing, “you were on the floor, too.”

“Ugh, you’re right. Those pants are going right in the incinerator,” I said, just to hear that laugh.

Christ, I’m a goddamn sucker.

*

I lay on the bed smoking while he showered. I hadn’t really planned to stay in the bedroom, but he’d left the bathroom door open a crack and I could tell he was making absolutely sure I’d hear him if he collapsed. I knew he was nervous about showering because with his history of head trauma, the last thing he needed was another head injury, no matter how minor, and the tile floor is hard. (With my fondness for shower fucking, I’d put in as non-slip a surface as I could find, so at least him slipping was less likely.) So when he’d glanced into the bedroom before getting into the shower, I’d made a big show of flopping down on the bed and lighting a cigarette.

He made it through the shower unscathed – though I’ll admit I’m glad I was there in case he didn’t – and he padded out into the bedroom with just a towel around his waist, his hair dripping onto his shoulders and his cheeks flushed from the hot water. Fuck, he was beautiful. He hesitated looking down at his clothes – dirty, sweaty, and covered in whatever ungodly substances coat the floor of the back room – so I tossed him the sweatpants, t-shirt, and socks – _my_ sweatpants, t-shirt, and socks – that I’d already pulled out for him, hitting him in the side of the face. “You don’t want to put those back on.”

“Thanks,” he said, smiling, and he took my clothes into the bathroom to get dressed.

*

We put his club clothes in a bag and headed down to the car, and after giving me Daphne’s address, Justin spent the first half of the ride staring out the side window with a sort of… forlorn look on his face. I was hoping he’d tell me what was on his mind, and after a few silent minutes I found myself almost wishing for all the times I could barely get the fucker to shut up. Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Where’s your head at? I know this is a lot.”

He didn’t even look at me before he burst into tears, covering his face with his hands and hunching forward. “Fuck,” he murmured, taking a deep, shaky breath. “Fuck.” I put my hand on his back and just held it there, trying to ground him. 

During the panic attacks after the bashing, he was usually (not always, but I could usually tell when he needed me to back off) comforted by physical contact. Physical contact from me, anyway, from someone he trusted. Just a hand, anywhere on his body, so he knew I was there. He told me it gave him something to concentrate on, to focus his attention on when his brain was trying its hardest to splinter into useless shards of panic; and sometimes it was enough to bring him back to reality.

He wasn’t having a panic attack in the car, but what else was I going to do? So I let my hand rest there as I drove and felt his back shudder under my palm. No way in hell was I just dropping him at Daphne’s and leaving. Not after that. He was still sniffling when I parked and went around to open his door for him, and the idiot looked at me in confusion when he climbed out.

“I’m okay, Brian. I promise, I just… I’m okay. Thank you for the ride. And thank you for last night. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there. But I’m okay, I know you have to get to work.”

“Are you going to school to work on your projects?”

“Uh, yeah. They’re in my studio space.”

“Well, if you’re just going to change and go over there, I’ll give you a ride.”

He didn’t need the hassle of navigating the bus system after the night he’d had, and I knew he was feeling shaky about being alone. He stared at me for a few seconds, studying my expression, before giving me a half smile and a ‘suit yourself’ shrug, and heading toward the front door.

*

I followed him up to Daphne’s apartment and sat on the sofa, casual as could be, as he dropped his dirty clothes in a hamper and pulled clean ones out of a dresser that had sheets piled on top of it. He hesitated before going into the bathroom and closing the door, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I hadn’t thought much of it when he’d gone back into the bathroom to get dressed at the loft, but now… I mean, I’d had my tongue in the kid’s ass, and now he was being modest? I glanced around and vaguely noticed how cramped the living room felt with a hamper and dresser pushed up against the wall, and then I noticed there was only one bedroom. And there were sheets on top of the dresser… Justin must have been sleeping on the sofa. The old, lumpy, definitely too short sofa. Perfect.

I remembered from our research – and I had zero doubt that he remembered, too – that shitty sleep and stress can both trigger seizures, and suddenly I was surprised that last night was the first bigger one he’d had. As much as I wanted to bitch at him for endangering his health – because fuck him for thinking he could sleep on a cramped sofa in the middle of someone’s apartment that didn’t even have fucking blinds on the windows – I bit my tongue. For now. He’d had a rough twelve hours, and his eyes were still a little red and puffy when he came out of the bathroom raising an eyebrow.

“Ready?” he asked, grabbing his backpack and dropping my sweatpants and t-shirt into the hamper before I could stop him. I would have happily taken them home and, you know, worn them and smelled him on them. And then gotten stoned and wallowed in my pathetic wretchedness, so… probably better that I didn’t catch him in time.

*

I pulled up to the curb outside the studio arts building at PIFA and felt an alien urge to grab Justin’s backpack and walk him inside. Don’t worry, I ignored it. He didn’t get out right away though, but neither of us seemed to know what to say, so eventually I squeezed his arm and gave him a smile that he returned.

“Thank you. I swear, one day you won’t have to rescue me anymore.” He only sounded slightly bitter, which I had to give him credit for. I knew how much he resented my savior complex sometimes. His words, obviously, and I’d been proud of myself for not throwing him out of the car when he’d said it.

I shrugged and looked out the windshield, having just about reached my limit for emotional sincerity, and murmured, “I don’t mind.” And I didn’t.

*

As I drove away, I thought about the tragic reason I liked rescuing him every once in a while. And christ, I can barely even admit it to myself. I’d never told anyone this (I could just imagine the guys reading all kinds of shit into it), but back when Justin was living with Ethan, he called me a few times. Now, I’m not an idiot. I know a huge part of the reason Justin fell for the fiddler in the first place was because he let Justin talk, and he talked back. They lived for the kind of deep, soul-crushing conversations I’d run screaming from, that Justin had begged me for. I was sure they talked about his panic attacks and nightmares, about the bashing. But the funny thing is, when he was cowering in an alley and needed someone to talk him down from hyperventilating, when all he needed in the world was to hear a calming voice, who did he call? Not the fucking fiddler. And I know part of it was that he didn’t want to freak Ethan out or be a burden, and since I already had a year of experience handling his panic attacks, why not dump it on me? But when it comes down to it, it says a lot that I was the one he called when he was panicked and crying, scared and embarrassed. Ethan never made him feel as safe as I did, and selfishly, I didn’t hate that.

So, you see where I’m going with this. I didn’t mind rescuing him every once in a while because it kept me in his life. So, swallowing down my vomit and ruminating on just how utterly pathetic I am, I strolled into the office just under an hour late and ignored Cynthia’s raised eyebrow as I breezed by her desk. Business as usual.


	2. You should stay at the loft tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picks up a few hours after Chapter One ended.

It was 6 o’clock, and I was sitting at my desk, drumming my fingers on my keyboard and arguing with myself. I’d spent the last few hours working on a campaign for fucking _yellow_ sunblock – take a second to imagine what a fucking minefield marketing _that_ shit was going to be – but I hadn’t been able to focus with my mind constantly wandering back to Justin, and seizures, and Daphne’s fucking sofa. I couldn’t get his face out of my mind, the look on it when he’d asked if he could take a shower at the loft. He’d been trying so hard to sound nonchalant so I wouldn’t hear the fear behind his words; as if he’d ever been able to hide his feelings from me. Even when I ignored them, even when I pretended not to see because I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do about them, I’ve always known what he was feeling.

And now I couldn’t stop picturing him in his studio, trying to keep his mind on his projects so he wouldn’t have to think about the coming nights he’d be spending alone in an empty apartment. And then my mind decided to drift irrationally and unhelpfully to an image of him curled up under a blanket in Daphne’s dark living room, scared and crying in the middle of the night. Fuck.

I grabbed my keys on my way out the door.

*

I parked outside the studio arts building, hoping he was still there. He could easily have finished up already and been having dinner with Jen, or have met up with friends, or been working a shift at the diner. But equally, he could be in his studio, so wrapped up in his projects that he’d lost track of time and the fact that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

I grabbed the large mushroom and onion pizza I’d picked up on the way over and headed inside, and I was relieved to hear him call “Come in!” when I knocked on the door to his space. I’d been there a few times back before he left, picking him up after work, or checking out his projects, or trying to distract him from his assignments in wholly unwholesome ways.

He turned when I walked in and shock flashed across his face as he let out a startled, “Brian!” He laughed when he noticed the pizza I was carrying and asked, “What’s up?” with that amused look he gets when he thinks I’m being painfully transparent. Christ, this kid. 

I shrugged. “Thought you might be hungry,” I said, setting the pizza down on a clean section of his work table.

“Mhmm,” he hummed, not buying that explanation for a minute – even though, I’d like to point out, it wasn’t _un_ true – but he left it alone, washing his hands and grabbing a slice. We perched on stools and ate and chatted, about his classes, the guys, Gus. I wandered around his studio commenting on his work, and it was nice just… talking, like we used to. And I was relieved that it was easy, casual, like it had always been, never having to fish for things to talk about, easily making each other laugh.

But eventually, we finished eating, and he went back to putting some finishing touches on one of his projects while I took an excessive amount of time cleaning up our napkins, until I knew I couldn’t put off my actual reason for being there any longer. He kept glancing at me like he was trying to figure out how to ask what the fuck I was still doing there without offending me, and I couldn’t blame him. I mean, we’d barely spent ten minutes together over the last six months – last night notwithstanding – and now I was showing up with pizza and bothering him while he was trying to work. Okay, time to rip off the band aid.

When he was at the sink with his back to me, I sucked in a breath and just went for it. “You should stay at the loft tonight.”

When he didn’t immediately respond, I wondered if I’d pissed him off by implying that he needed looking after, but… he sort of did.

After what felt like an eternity, he turned around and stared at me with his head cocked to the side, trying to read my face.

“Look, I know you can take care of yourself, but you had a seizure last night, you’re exhausted, don’t try to tell me you’re not. And since we don’t know what’s going on” – _FUCK, ‘we’?_ – “it’s not a bad idea to… not… be on your own tonight. And I’m assuming no one else knows what happened, so you’re probably sort of limited on options…”

Well, that was elegant. Jesus.

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor for a second before looking me in the eye and shrugging. “Okay. Thanks, Brian.”

And even though it was what I wanted, it didn’t sit well with me that he hadn’t put up even a token fight. Because it probably meant he was too exhausted to argue, and too nervous about being alone to risk me rescinding the offer. He’d been on the receiving end of too many Brian Kinney queen outs to take that chance. Go me.

*

We stopped at Daphne’s apartment so he could grab some sweats to sleep in and his sketch pad, and we were both pretty quiet on the ride to the loft. When we got there, he settled on the sofa to draw while I jumped in the shower and tried to figure out how to make sure he would be okay sleeping in my bed. I figured he was going to insist on the sofa, but the whole point in him staying with me was to get a good night’s sleep, probably for the first time in weeks. What would be the point in just moving from Daphne’s sofa to mine? And, yes, he was also there so I could keep an eye on him. I wasn’t trying to hide that.

I dried off and got ready to go out, and even though I was hoping he would stay in and relax, I wasn’t about to make that decision for him; so, when he looked up at me when I came down from the bedroom, I asked if he wanted to come to Woody’s for a drink with the guys. “I promised Mikey I’d be there,” I explained, a little conflicted over leaving when I was the one who’d invited him over. 

“No thanks, I’m pretty tired,” he said with a shake of his head, and I wondered if he, too, was thinking about what fucking drama queens the guys would be if we walked in together. “You don’t have to just go to Woody’s, you know. You don’t have to babysit me.”

“Yeah well I’m pretty tired too, I didn’t get any fucking sleep last night,” I said, with a raised eyebrow and a half smile so he’d know I wasn’t actually annoyed. We both knew a lack of sleep wouldn’t really keep me away from Babylon if I was determined, but, you know.

He gave me a sarcastic smile in response that I caught morphing into a real smile when he looked back down at his sketchpad, and I only hesitated for a second before walking over and squatting beside him. I waited until he lifted his pencil off the paper to wrap my hand around his wrist, and he looked at me in surprise but didn’t pull away.

“You’re going to sleep in the bed, right? You’ve been sleeping on a fucking sofa for weeks, and you need a good night’s sleep.”

He looked back down at his sketchpad with an expression that clearly said “fat chance,” so I shook his arm a little and told him, “If I come home and find you sleeping on the sofa, I’m just going to wake you up and drag you to bed,” – I ignored his smirk with valiant effort – “so you might as well start out there. I’ll take the sofa.”

He shrugged and said, “I’ll think about it,” so I let him go and grabbed my jacket figuring there was about a 60% chance he’d be in bed when I got home. But as the door slid shut, he shouted, “You don’t have to sleep on the sofa!”, so, okay. 99% chance.

*

I had a few drinks and shot some pool with the guys, mentioning nothing of Justin or seizures or the fact that Sunshine was currently holed up at the loft. Not even when Mikey got nosey.

“So where’d you disappear to last night? You go home with some trick?”

I shrugged and licked my lips suggestively, hoping he’d accept the non-answer after years of dealing with my noncommittal grunts, and sure enough, good ol’ Mikey just laughed and adopted that disgusting dreamy tone I loathe to tell me that “Ben and I made love all night after we got home.”

 _Ugh._ Did I ask? He didn’t appreciate me snarking, “Excuse me while I go vomit, Mikey,” but hey, he knows what he’s getting into when he says that shit to me.

I was dragging by 11, so I headed home, not sure what I’d find. I don’t know what time Justin and the fiddler usually went to bed, but I’d never known him to be asleep that early. Depending on the day of the week – remember, the lad was still in school – 11 usually found him dancing, fucking, sketching, or doing homework. Still, I was glad I made an effort to drag the door open as quietly as possible – which wasn’t really that quiet, it’s a solid sheet of metal, but points for trying – when I stepped into a mostly dark loft. He’d left a few lamps on, considerate little fucker, and as I walked toward the bedroom, I was happy to see the very noticeable lump of his body under the covers. Good.

I turned off the lamps before showering the smell of cigarettes and whiskey off my skin and out of my hair, then I put on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top before climbing onto the comforter beside him. I usually sleep naked, but for once in my life I was trying to be considerate. I pulled the blue blanket up to my waist and remembered all the times Justin had wrapped himself in it to walk around the loft after sex, naked and flushed and sleepy, and I almost laughed out loud when I remembered the time I’d briefly considered buying him a robe, before deciding nah, I prefer the blanket.

I looked over at him and was just able to make out his features in the moonlight. He was lying his back with his face turned toward me, with his arms curved up around his head in a way that made him look like a kid. My breath caught and then I rolled my eyes at myself as the image of him scared and alone in Daphne’s apartment popped back into my head. Christ, Kinney, pull yourself together.

As I drifted off, I worried a little about how glad I was that he was there.

*

I have no idea how long I’d been asleep when I was wrenched awake by a blood-curdling scream. _FUCK._ It didn’t matter that Justin had woken me up that way dozens of times before, or that by that point, I’d have recognized his scream from across the city. It’s just not something you get used to.

I willed my heart to stop racing as I sat up and turned on the lamp, and then I rubbed his arm, trying to rouse him.

“Justin, wake up. Come on, Sunshine, open your eyes.”

After a handful of nightmares, I’d figured out that shouting him awake (and to be fair, I was trying to be heard over his screaming, and I may have been a tiny bit freaked out myself, in the beginning), just freaked him out further, so I’d landed on moderately loud and firm but calm. Who says I’m not capable of growth? And it wasn’t like I hadn’t been expecting this; Justin’s brain has always dealt with stress by giving him absolutely horrific nightmares, but I was still nervous about his reaction. He was going to be freaked out and disoriented from the nightmare, on top of being confused about why he wasn’t on Daphne’s sofa, and why a guy he hadn’t shared a bed with in months, aside from last night, was waking him up. I knew I could handle it, I just didn’t want the poor kid to be any more freaked out than he had to be. And, sure, I wasn’t looking forward to the way my stomach always drops when he bursts into tears. 

He stopped screaming when I started speaking to him, but it always takes him a little while to fully wake up. I kept murmuring reassurances and scratching his scalp a little while he came out of it, gasping and trembling and darting his eyes around the room. He finally blinked up at me and we locked eyes for a second before his face crumpled and he covered it with his hands, bursting into tears.

Oof. I’d forgotten how bad that feels.

He rolled away from me, curling in on himself, bawling and shaking, and all I could do was wait it out. I sat there silently, one hand on his waist and the other stroking his hair, keeping my hands on him for the same reason I had when he was having the seizure; the same reason, when it comes down to it, that I didn’t want him to be alone in Daphne’s apartment. In the thick of it, even when he won’t look at you, even when he’s so out of it you’re not even sure he knows you’re there, he usually likes having (gentle, comforting) hands on him so he knows he’s not alone, so he knows someone sees that he’s struggling.

Mindboggling, right? He _wants_ people to see that he’s struggling. Christ. But it takes all kinds, I guess.

He’d asked me once, after his dozenth or so nightmare, how I knew to do that, how I knew that’s what he needed in those moments when if you’d asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you himself. I don’t remember what I said at the time, I’m sure I deflected, horrified by the direction the conversation was going, but I do know the answer. So, obviously Justin and I had a very physical relationship, but that extends beyond sex. From that first night I brought him home, even through all the weeks I was trying (admittedly not very hard) to shake him, we’d always just… touched, a lot. We’d sit with our hips and thighs pressed together even when there was plenty of room to spread out. He’d run his fingers across my back when he walked by me, I’d ruffle his hair when I walked by him. He’d rub my shoulders when I was working at the computer; I’d run my hand down his back when we stood side-by-side. All for no other reason than we felt a pull toward one another, this impulse to be in contact. And why would comforting him have been any different?

It took a few minutes, but eventually the bawling and shaking downgrade to sniffling and shuddering, and I watched him for another minute while he took a few deep breaths. When he was ready he rolled onto his back, in the process grabbing the hand I’d had on his waist and pulling it onto his stomach to hold there. He looked up at me, his breathing still a little unsteady, searching my face as if he were trying to decide whether or not to say something. It was only then that it occurred to me that at no point had he seemed disoriented or confused about where he was or why I was the one waking him up.

He still had tears in his voice when he finally spoke, but at least he was completely lucid. Anxious as fuck, but lucid.

“I’ve been having them a lot since I moved in with Daphne. She’s had to wake me up a few times,” he explained, glancing away from me to hide the blush spreading over his cheeks.

And it’s funny, even with all of his ‘you can’t keep saving me’ and ‘I can take care of myself’ and ‘I’m not a kid’ that I’d had to hear back when he was living with me, he had never, not once, been embarrassed to break down in front of me. Nightmares, panic attacks, crying jags, rages so violent I’d had to physically restrain him, none of that had ever caused him embarrassment when it was just me and him. He’d felt other things in droves, obviously. Frustration, anger, fear, confusion, sadness, remorse, whatever, depending on the situation, but not embarrassment. And I never, _ever_ made him feel bad about the after-effects of the bashing. I may have fucked with this kid in every other way possible, and I may have refused to talk to him about that night even when I could see how much he needed to, but I never made him feel like his reaction to the trauma was wrong, or shameful. So that shame I saw on his face when he looked away from me was like a punch to the gut, and I really hoped it was about Daphne having seen him that way and not about me.

“Fuck,” he said, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t have to deal with this.”

I shrugged and rubbed his scalp and admitted, “I’m glad you’re not alone,” as casually as I could, and his hand tightened over mine.

He looked at me and I could tell he was exhausted and upset and feeling vulnerable, and maybe he wouldn’t have kept talking if it weren’t for the quiet and dark of the middle of the night – I’d glanced at the clock at some point, 2 a.m. – or if I hadn’t scooped him off the floor of the back room last night, but he said, quietly, “I can’t stop thinking about what my life will be like if this… is how it’s going to be from now on.” He eyes flicked away from mine. “And my fucking anxiety keeps reminding me that I’m not with anyone right now, so my fear about being sick is just, like, compounded by the fact that I know I’m no one’s priority. There’s only so much you can put on your friends. And you know what’s funny?” He was rambling now, “I had so many nightmares here, my like, formative nightmares were all here, and every time I’ve woken up from a nightmare since I moved out, every single time for months, it’s taken me a few seconds to figure out why I’m not here. Why you’re not the one waking me up.” He huffed a laugh. “Ethan got so pissed once when he woke me up from one, it was a really bad one so it took me a while to figure out what was going on, and before I had, I’d grabbed his hand and said your name and he said I sounded so relieved – aside from the hyperventilating and crying, apparently – and the next day he was so pissed. ‘Why don’t you sound that relieved when you say _my_ name?’ He was so touchy about that stuff sometimes.”

I didn’t miss how he’d said “that stuff” as if there were more, and I had a burning curiosity to know what else had happened, but I kept my mouth shut. As far as he knew, Brian Kinney doesn’t give a shit, right? So Brian Kinney sure as hell doesn’t pry.

Well. At least not when it’s 2 a.m. and we’re both shaky and tired.

I’d been playing with his hair and wiping the tears off his face while he was talking – I know how to comfort the kid, but thank Christ no one was there to see it – and by the time he came to the end of his monologue, he was falling asleep again, the hand clutching mine relaxing as his eyelids drooped. I’d always found it funny how he could wake up screaming, adrenaline flooding his system, and be asleep again ten minutes later. He just crashes. He looked up at me with bleary eyes as though looking for reassurance, so I murmured, “Go to sleep, Sunshine,” and he gave me a small, sleepy smile before fading out.

Unfortunately, my adrenaline rushes never fade as quickly as his do, so I watched him sleep for a few minutes, looking at his red, puffy eyes and his flushed cheeks, and I let myself miss him. Obviously, I missed him in my bed, but thanks to recent efforts to be honest with myself, I could admit that I missed him in my life, too. Despite it never being enough for him, I’d never been able to talk to anyone the way I could talk to him. Not even Mikey. I even missed him bugging me for attention, bouncing around the loft, his energy, his sarcasm, his… I mean, there’s a reason Debbie calls him Sunshine. His fucking incessant babbling. There was always a buzz in the air when he was around, and I never really noticed until he was gone and it was just still, all the time.

Justin chose that moment to interrupt my pointless train of thought with a small moan, scrunching up his face and clenching his hands into fists.

Shit.

I rolled back toward him and lightly rubbed circles on his chest, something I used to do during his panic attacks to help him focus. I rested my other hand on the top of his head and rubbed my thumb across his forehead, murmuring softly (“Hey, Sunshine, you’re all right, it’s just a dream, come on, Sunshine,” etc.), not because I thought he was processing anything I was saying, but more in the hopes that he’d unconsciously pick up on my voice and my tone and be soothed by it. I’ll never fucking understand why, but he used to find my presence alone comforting; and if his reaction when I showed up mid-seizure last night could be trusted, he still did.

He moaned again and grabbed my hand, but he didn’t wake up, and a few seconds later, his body relaxed. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, I can catch a nightmare before it gets bad. When I was sure he was okay, I slid my hand out from under his and rolled onto my back. I stared at the ceiling and wondered what the fuck else Ethan was weird about until I fell asleep.


	3. You must know that this is above and beyond what any normal person would do for their cheating ex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to say "picks up the next morning", but then I realized it would just be easier to say: Unless I specify some kind of time jump, each chapter pretty much leads right on from the previous one.
> 
> Okay, ready to find out what's going on with Sunshine?

Before I even fully woke up, I knew I was alone in bed. I opened my eyes to bright sunlight streaming through the windows and looked at the clock in surprise: 10 a.m. I never slept that late when I wasn’t hungover, but Justin had always slept in on weekends – and weekdays whenever he could get away with it – so where the fuck was he?

About two seconds later, I heard clattering in the kitchen, so I hauled myself up, took a piss, brushed my teeth, and then went down to find him making breakfast. He was rocking some serious bedhead, and when he heard me coming, he looked up with a sheepish smile nervously lighting up his face.

“I hope you don’t mind. I thought I’d make breakfast to thank you. Not that I really can, but…” he said with a half shrug and a gesture toward the full pot of coffee. Mmm, the perks of having another person around.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

He shook his head while he turned back around to mess with the eggs on the stove. “I’m really grateful though. You didn’t have to leave Babylon for me the other night, and you definitely didn’t have to let me stay here last night.”

“I’m the one who suggested it,” I said, because what else could I say? He was right; I didn’t have to do any of that.

“Right! Exactly. You didn’t have any obligation to help me on Thursday; you would have been well within your rights to tell Todd to fuck off. Or you could have just put me in a cab. Or dropped me off at Daphne’s. You had plenty of opportunities to just make sure I wasn’t about to drop dead and leave it at that. I mean, I fucking betrayed you, Brian. I broke the rules that _I_ insisted on.” He wasn’t letting me get a word in and he was shaking his head and half shouting, but… was he apologizing? “But you saw that I was afraid to stay in an empty apartment, and you _insisted_ – we both know you weren’t really asking – that I stay here for another night, and for what? What do you get out of this?” He was plating up the food now, still shaking his head. “I know you’re a good enough man that maybe you’re doing this out of some sort of… moral obligation, or something, but even if you’re doing it because you still care about me, you must know that this is above and beyond what any normal person would do for their cheating ex,” he said, looking me dead in the eye as though challenging me to contradict him.

And I couldn’t, because he wasn’t wrong. He had, technically, cheated, and fuck, if it were one of my friends I’d be shitting on them for letting themselves get taken for a ride by said cheating ex. But that wasn’t what was going on here, and I wasn’t about to say any of that to him, so I shrugged and poured two cups of coffee.

“Cheating ex or not, it’s my responsibility.”

“Okay… how do you figure that?” he asked with a strange look. He picked up our plates and went and sat at the table, so I followed with the coffees and handed him one.

“Come on, why are you having seizures at all? Because you were bashed.” And Christ, even after all that time I could barely say it without wincing. “And why did that asshole swing a bat at your head?”

“Because he’s a raging, closeted, homophobe with uncontrollable anger issues.”

“Or because your 30-year-old—”

“Jesus, Brian, stop. How many times do you have to hear that the bashing wasn’t your fault before you’ll believe it?”

He said it sort of offhandedly, like it was ridiculous, and I gave him a look. He was not that stupid.

His face fell before he said quietly, “You’ll never believe it.”

“And I worry about you, you fucking know that,” I forced out, because as much as it pained me to open myself up like that, I didn’t want him thinking I was only helping him out of a sense of duty, and I didn’t want to keep talking about the fucking bashing. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him once I’d said it though, so I shoveled some eggs into my mouth and stared at my plate.

When I finally looked up, surprised by his silence, he quirked an eyebrow and gave me a small smile. That face, Christ, that face that tells me he knows exactly what’s going on in my head.

“Someone’s got to, you’re a goddamn mess. Living in that tetanus-infested shithole with your starving musician,” I said with a chuckle.

That small smile stayed on his face while we finished our food and cleaned up, and I was almost relieved when he finally broke the silence by asking if he could shower before he took off.

“Help yourself.”

*

Five minutes later, I was sitting at the table looking through some account files and sipping my third cup of coffee. I only had a fraction of my attention on the shower sounds coming from the bathroom, but it was enough that I immediately looked up when I heard the kind of thump you definitely don’t want to hear when someone you’re already worried about is in there. And it very obviously wasn’t a dropped-the-shampoo thump. But because I’m an idiot, I hesitated, wondering if Justin would be okay with me checking on him. It took several long seconds for my idiot brain to realize oh wait, that was the _exact goddamn reason_ he was showering there, and I was just pushing back from the table when he yelled “BRIAN!” in this breathless, panicked voice that cut right through the loft.

I sprinted to the bathroom, knocking over my chair in the process, and barged in to find him sitting on the floor of the shower with the spray pounding down on him, awkwardly hunched over his violently shaking right leg, which was stretched out straight in front of him. I ripped off my t-shirt and kicked off my jeans without bothering to consider the ramifications of what I was doing, of how Justin would react, none of which mattered a second later anyway, because when I opened the shower door and he looked up at me, he had that same terrified, wide-eyed look he’d had at Babylon. I didn’t give a shit in that moment about anything other than fixing the fact that he was hurting and probably scared out of his fucking mind.

“Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?” I asked, squatting in front of him (I’d left my briefs on, if you’re wondering). I brushed his bangs out of his eyes and looked for marks, but he shook his head.

There was really nothing to do but wait for it to be over, so I turned off the water and then sat behind him, cringing when my briefs immediately soaked through. Lovely. I wrapped my arms around his chest, and I was happy when he relaxed slightly and slid his arms over mine, clinging to me. I started running my fingers lightly up and down his side to soothe him, but I stopped when he almost immediately cringed away. Maybe it was too much stimulation right then. Seriously, nothing makes you feel more useless than sitting by while your… friend seizes in your arms.

Anyway, it ended a minute later and I had to tighten my arms when he slumped forward, and between that and the breathless gasping that was making his back heave against my chest, I would have been more concerned if not for the way his hands were like vice grips on my arms. In light of his charming past obsession with taking care of himself, I waited for his cue; I sat there rubbing light circles on his chest to help him calm down his breathing while I forced myself to let him take the lead on what was going to happen next. There was no way we weren’t going to the hospital at that point, but I was hoping he’d come to that conclusion himself.

He was trembling, and I didn’t know if it was an aftereffect of the seizure, or just from the fact that it was cold as fuck sitting naked and damp on a wet floor. His skin was noticeably cooling down under my hands and goosebumps had started popping up, and my own freezing ass was screaming to get off the wet floor. But he was taking his sweet time, so finally I said, “Hey,” and squeezed him a bit, trying to snap him out of his stupor. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat and said, “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

 _Halleluiah._ I would have absolutely been the bad guy and bullied him into a hospital visit if he’d resisted, but thank you, Sunshine, for not forcing me to do that.

I helped him up – his leg was still weak – and we dried off and got dressed. He was shaky and nervous and seemed not totally with it, so he let me help him put yesterday’s clothes back on. I still wasn’t sure how much he wanted from me, but when he leaned against me in the elevator, I wrapped my arm around him and hugged him to me.

*

He fell asleep in the car, only waking up when I pulled into the hospital parking lot, and the idiot put his hand on my arm and thanked me for the ride in this fake cheerful voice that made me want to cringe. As if he thought there was a chance in hell I’d leave him alone in this horrible place that used to make him anxious just driving by, especially when he was scared and tired and still a little spacey. Idiot. Which I told him he was being right before he tried to assure me that he was fine, and that I didn’t need to waste any more of my day for him when I’d already done so much.

“All true,” I said, tongue firmly in my cheek. “So who should call, Jennifer? Because you can’t seriously think you’re going in there alone when you can barely follow this conversation.”

His face told me he’d been hoping I hadn’t noticed, but I fucking knew him better than that. Nice try, Sunshine. So, in we went.

I helped him with the forms when his hand started acting up – I knew all the answers, anyway; I’d brought him to some of his doctors’ appointments after the bashing when Jennifer couldn’t make it – and his history of traumatic brain injury combined with two fairly large seizures in the last 36 hours got the medical staff pretty excited. We got some dirty looks from the other people in the waiting room when they ushered us into the back almost immediately.

He’d gotten more and more antsy while we filled out the forms (and honestly, so had I), so I didn’t bother asking if he wanted me to come into the back with him; I just follow behind and settled into the chair in the cubicle the medical assistant showed us to. Now that we were actually at the hospital, trying to ignore the burning antiseptic smell that was practically giving me flashbacks, I realized there was no way I’d have let them take him into the back alone. Which of course they essentially did a little while later when they took him for his MRI, but, well. There were some places even I wouldn’t force my way into.

I watched the nurse take his blood pressure (low), blood oxygen level (normal), and temperature (normal) with what I hoped was a bored expression, willing myself to stay out of it. But when the doctor started questioning him about the seizures, Justin looked to me for help, so I filled in the gaps for them – how long the they lasted, how out of it he was afterward. They finally asked him if anything unusual had happened during the week; a head injury, an illness, anything that may have triggered the first one, and dread washed over me when Justin’s eyes widened and he muttered, “fuck,” under his breath.

“I hit my head… pretty hard on Tuesday.” _Shit._ “I-I didn’t think anything of it though, I mean, I didn’t lose consciousness or anything.”

“Well, you don’t necessarily lose consciousness when you get a concussion, and with your history, Justin, it’s extremely important that you pay attention to any symptoms you have following even minor head trauma. What happened on Tuesday?”

“I was in the hallway at school, and this kid rushed past me, he… knocked me into the wall. Accidentally,” he rushed to clarify when he saw the look on my face. His voice was shaking. “I hit my head, the back of it,” he said, touching the spot in question, “but… I was fine…”

“Did your vision blur, or did you feel dazed at all, like you needed a second to gather yourself before you continued on?”

“Yeah, I needed a minute,” he said in a small voice. That scared look was back in his eyes.

“And then you had the largest seizure you’ve ever had approximately, what, 30 hours later?”

“Yeah.”

“It sounds like you might have a brain contusion. A bruise, essentially. We’ll do an MRI and an EEG to see if that’s the case, and we’ll take it from there.”

Justin looked like he was about to cry, and I finally cracked and jumped in. “If it _is_ that, that will heal, right? Bruises heal. And the seizures will stop.”

“Bruises do heal, yes, but I really can’t give a prognosis until we have the test results. If—” he continued, looking at Justin, “my suspicions are correct, and the seizures are the result of a contusion, they should fade as the contusion does.”

“Should,” I clarified.

“Should.”

“And the low blood pressure?”

“That could be caused by any number of things; right now, I’m not too worried about it. It’s low, but low normal.”

After asking if Justin had any questions (he just pressed his lips together and shook his head) and promising to put in the orders for the tests, everyone shuffled out and we were left alone. As soon as the curtain swung closed, he wrapped his arms around his stomach and stared at the ceiling, sucking in a shuddery breath and trying not to cry. So I did the only rational thing and reached over and laced my fingers through his, and look, I know things were weird with us, and I didn’t know where the hell we stood, but he was a nineteen-year-old kid who was lying in a fucking hospital bed because he was having seizures he was afraid wouldn’t stop. He deserved to have someone hold his fucking hand. And yeah, I knew the likelihood of me drowning my poor little broken heart in a bottle of whiskey at the end of all this was pretty damn high, but he was a nineteen-year-old kid lying in a fucking hospital bed having seizures I was afraid wouldn’t stop. I deserved to hold his fucking hand.

He was gone for about an hour for the MRI, then they did the EEG right in his cubicle, and then we waited for another excruciating couple of hours while the doctor looked over the results and probably took a few personal calls and had a fucking coffee break before he came back to talk to us. To him. _He_ was lucky enough to doze off while we waited, but I was stuck sitting there coming out of my skin. What was so fucking hard about reading a goddamn MRI?

I shook him awake when the doctor finally deigned to come back, and after waiting while Justin took a little too long to wake up and a little too long to get his bearings – completely normal after a seizure, we were assured – he asked Justin if he wanted me to leave the room while he delivered the test results. There was an edge of desperation to Justin’s “No!”, like he was afraid they were going to kick me out anyway (as if I’d have let them), so I found his hand where it was resting on the blanket and covered it with mine. I didn’t know if he just wanted the comfort of having someone with him, or because he remembered from after the bashing that he’s not great at focusing and remembering this kind of shit when he’s scared and stressed, but whatever the reason, I was embarrassingly relieved that he wanted me there.

The doctor threw a bunch of medical jargon at us that we can definitely skip over here, but the gist of it was that his hunch had been right. Justin had a very mild brain contusion that had resulted in microhemorrhages, which meant some of the small blood vessels in his brain were leaking. Which sounds scary as fuck, but that’s just what bruises are; the color is blood pooling under your skin, just like it was now apparently pooling on his brain? Wait. Fuck. Anyway, he didn’t have a concussion, which the doctor was clearly happy about, and without his history of brain trauma, a contusion this mild probably wouldn’t have been symptomatic. That’s Justin for you, always the overachiever. They assured us that it should – _should_ – heal within a week or two, nice vague timeline, and that the seizures _should_ fade as the contusion did, hopefully disappearing completely once his brain was fully healed.

I was used to it by then, but I didn’t realize how much the medical profession hates absolutes until Justin was bashed. And they never make guarantees. First, they’d told us he might live, or he might not. Then, when they were reasonably sure he wasn’t actively dying, they’d told us he might wake up, or he might not. Well. They’d told Jennifer. Then, when his brain activity indicated he’d probably regain at least _some_ level of consciousness, they’d said he might walk and talk and eat and fucking piss on his own again, or he might not. He might be the same old Sunshine, or his personality might have permanently changed. And on and on and fucking _on_. So as much as I hate how wishy-washy doctors sound to me these days, at least I’m used to it.

So anyway, that was all relatively promising news, but things got a little sticky when the doctor pointed out that with Justin’s history – Christ, it is always, but _always_ , ‘with Justin’s history’ – it was hard to say how the seizure activity would progress as the contusion healed (see? wishy-washy), and it would be safer if he didn’t spend extended periods of time alone for the next couple of weeks, and does he live alone, or…?

“I have a roommate, but she’s out of town.”

“Do you have any friends or family you could stay with? There’s just no way for us to know exactly how this will progress. The seizure this morning could be the last one you have, or you could have quite a few more of varying levels of severity while the contusion heals, and you don’t want to fall and injure yourself—”

“He can stay with me.” Jesus fucking Christ; excellent bedside manner, this guy.

Everyone – the doctor, the nurse, Justin, the tech who was busy unhooking Justin’s IV – looked at me, and I just managed to stop myself from snorting. Aside from making sure Justin wanted me in the room, they obviously hadn’t asked about our relationship, and we sure as hell hadn’t offered anything up. What would we have even said? Besides which, it was none of their fucking business. But I saw relief in the doctor’s eyes, which worried me, frankly, that he was so concerned about some random kid he didn’t know staying on his own for a few days, so I was even more adamant when I insisted, “He’ll stay with me,” silently willing Justin not to argue.

Obviously, he could have stayed with his mother, or Debbie, or, I don’t know, had one of his friends from school come stay at Daphne’s with him, but I didn’t think he’d see any of those as serious options. Ever since the bashing, Jennifer had had a hair trigger about every little health-related thing with him, on top of which he’s got really fucking bad memories of those first few weeks at her condo after coming home from the hospital. A lot of which is my fault. He doesn’t even like staying there at the holidays now. And good old Debbie would have fussed and hovered and spread the news to all of Liberty Avenue; poor little Sunshine’s having seizures, make sure to look out for him, would you? Christ, spare me. Like he needed any more unwanted attention. And I realize I hadn’t exactly had insider information on the kid recently, but he and the fiddler had seemed so wrapped up in each other, I’d have been surprised if he was close enough to anyone else from school to want to bring them into this.

The doc upped Justin’s regular anticonvulsant slightly to decrease the risk of more seizures, which he warned us could result in nausea and dizziness if it messed with his already-on-the-low-end-of-normal blood pressure – joy – and he scheduled a follow-up MRI for two weeks later, told Justin to schedule a follow-up with his neurologist for the day after that if possible to go over the results, and promised to send the results of today’s tests over. He detailed when I’d need to call an ambulance (if Justin had two tonic-clonic seizures in a thirty minute span, or if he wasn’t breathing well after one. Fun lesson of the day: it turns out you can stop breathing completely during that kind of seizure, so that was a goddamn nightmare to look forward to) before he let us leave. He may have been wishy-washy, but he was thorough.

We stopped at the pharmacy to pick up the higher-dose anticonvulsant on the way to Daphne’s, where I assumed we were just picking up more of his stuff to bring back to the loft. But of course, Justin never lets things be that easy. As soon as were inside, he turned to me with this serious look on his face that meant we were going to Talk. I’d seen it before.

“Brian… I appreciate what you said at the hospital, and everything you’ve done, but I’ll be fine here.”

“Oh, is Daphne coming home early?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, as if that would in any way sway me. “Nooo, but I’ll be fine. And if I’m not, I can go to my mom’s.” I raised my eyebrows. “Or even Debbie’s.”

“You _should_ tell Jennifer, but you know she’ll be a nervous wreck, which will drive you crazy. And that bedroom gives you nightmares.” He’d told me that one night shortly after moving in with me, after Jennifer had begged me to take him, touch him, fix him, when he’d been trying to drink away his anxiety. I’d never known if he remembered telling me because he’d never mentioned it again, and he’d been so sloppy drunk that night that he’d ended up throwing up in our bed and then crying about it. Of course, _I_ was the one who’d had to change the sheets and clean him up in the middle of the night while he’d just flopped around weeping. Ah, fond memories. And from the startled look on his face now, I was guessing he didn’t remember.

“And Debbie will fuss and spread the news to half of Liberty Avenue. Is that what you want?”

“No, but—”

“Look, I’ll be at work all day and out at night, and you’ll be at school and the diner; it’s not like I’ll be babysitting you. I’ll just be around enough to make sure you don’t—You just need someone around to notice if you fall and crack your head open, so you’re not lying on the floor for three days before someone notices you’re missing, right?” That charming picture had been flashing through my mind since I’d noticed how worried the ER doctor was.

“Jesus, Brian,” he said, laughing nervously.

“Please, stop being a drama queen and just stay at the loft this week.” I rolled my eyes

“But it’s not your responsibility. It’s too much. It’s too much to ask of anyone, but especially when we’re not even… You heard the doctor, talking about ambulances, and making sure I’m breathing,” I caught the way his voice shook, “and I’m probably just going to feel sick all the time on this higher dose, and none of this is what you signed up for when you took me home on Thursday. I know that, and no one’s holding you to anything. This isn’t your problem. _I’m_ not your problem, anymore, I made sure of that. This isn’t… I can’t put this on you.”

I gave him a minute to calm down before saying, “Just, please,” trying to keep the frustration out of my voice.

“Why?”

I dragged my hand down my face. Why was it always like pulling teeth with this kid? Stubborn bastard.

“I’m not a complete asshole you know, I do actually care whether you live or die. And no one else will – look, you can’t be on your own right now, and no one else will…” _No one else will take care of you like I will._ “It’s temporary, you’ll get better, and then… things can go back to normal and Daphne can take you off my hands,” I shrugged. If that was what he wanted, that’s what we would do.

He stared at me, working through what I’d said, trying to work out what it meant, but I already knew he was going to give in. Spend enough time arguing with him, and you learn to recognize his fine-we’ll-do-it-your-way-if-only-to-shut-you-up face. I have one of those too.

“Fine... But I’m sleeping on the sofa.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’m just there so you can make sure I don’t die, right?”

Christ, I shouldn’t have said that; it felt like a kick to the stomach hearing it thrown back at me. And thanks to Sunshine’s charming shithole of a father, I actually knew what that felt like.

“I don’t expect anything else from you. I don’t expect you to help me if I have a nightmare, or a panic attack, or anything else. You’re doing enough.”

I nodded. “Fine, I promise I’ll just put a pillow over my head if you’re screaming and crying in the middle of the night.”

“You might regret this,” he continued, ignoring me.

“I might. But that’s beside the point.”

He wrinkled his nose in confusion, which was unfortunate because I really didn’t want to be sidetracked by his ill-timed charm right then.

“What point?”

“That you’re there to make sure you’re okay while your broken brain fixes itself, and that staying with me makes the most sense out of your available options. My hypothetical regret has nothing to do with it.”

“I just… I don’t know why you’re doing all of this.”

And I don’t know why I decided to do this then, because he’d already agreed to what I wanted, but fuck, might as well get it out of the way.

“Sunshine, despite what your shiny blonde hair may suggest, you’re not stupid. You do remember that you’re the one who left, right? I didn’t kick you out? You weren’t getting what you wanted from me, and I was maybe being an asshole about it,” I chuckled darkly, “but my feelings hadn’t changed. Yours had, and whatever’s happened, I’m not interested in you fucking dying. Christ, can you imagine the wailing we’d have to endure from Debbie?” I lowered my voice for this next part, because I was already way past my limit on all this emotional shit. “And there’s no good reason for you to be scared and anxious all week. You’ve spent enough time afraid. And _I_ can’t afford to be distracted all week, which I will be if I can’t keep an eye on your seizurey ass.”

He was watching me with this… regretful expression that I couldn’t figure out, but when he didn’t argue I figured whatever. A problem for another time.

“So pack a bag, and let’s go.”

*

It was almost dinnertime by the time we left Daphne’s, Justin’s threadbare duffle bag in tow – remind me why I hadn’t bought him a new one when he was living with me? – so we picked up Thai on the way back to the loft. We ate at the table and talked about god knows what, catching up on each other’s lives, and after we finished, he worked on a paper for one of his classes for a while before going to bed around nine. He was still exhausted from the seizure and the accompanying emotional rollercoaster, and undoubtedly from sleeping on a fucking sofa for three weeks, and he didn’t even bother repeating his offer to sleep on mine before he crawled into bed. I stayed up late trying to make headway on the nightmare sunblock campaign.

It was all so fucking civil and domestic and you know what? It wasn’t the worst.

He was absolutely right. I might regret it.

*

When I went to bed around midnight, having finally made some headway on the campaign, Justin was sprawled on his stomach fast asleep. He was wearing sweats and a t-shirt and lying on top of the comforter, with the blue blanket pooled around his waist. I sighed. He was sick and hadn’t been sleeping, but sure, sleep on top of the damn comforter for what, my consideration? I didn’t want to risk waking him by moving him under it though, so I just pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, threw on some sweats, and crawled under it myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not in the medical field but like I said in chapter one, I do have *some* experience with this stuff, and I did a decent amount of research for this chapter, and the scenario I've presented here is plausible. But don't take medical advice from me lol. <3


	4. Fuck, what happened?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh...

Sunday passed without a hitch, and I naively started thinking the stronger anticonvulsant must have been a miracle pill. But, as you’ll see, he wouldn’t be Justin if the universe didn’t feel a perverse need to fuck with him. Or maybe I’d just jinxed him by being optimistic for fucking once.

Anyway, he worked a breakfast shift at the diner – before which I’d told him in no uncertain terms that he was to _call me_ if he started feeling off, or even just tired, because did he want to have a seizure in the middle of the weekend breakfast rush with Debbie screaming for someone to call 911? – and then he took the bus to PIFA (refusing my offer to drive him) to work on a project. I did my usual Sunday; breakfast with the guys (Justin and I were cordial bordering on friendly while he waited on us, like we had been for months at that point), gym, steam room, errands, Gus, Woody’s, Babylon. He was asleep when I got home around midnight (on top of the comforter again – fucker, I _told him_ that morning) so I tried not to make a lot of noise while I showered off that distinct Babylon aroma of alcohol, sweat, sex, and smoke before I crawled in beside him and dropped off to sleep.

*

It was pitch black when I opened my eyes, and it took me a minute to figure out why I was awake. The bed felt like it was vibrating, and my still-slightly-buzzed brain was trying to process that when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head. And then my brain finally clicked into gear and… oh, _shit_.

I turned on the lamp and pulled the blanket off Justin so he didn’t fucking strangle himself (and yes, I’m a big enough person to admit to being grateful in that moment that he hadn’t gotten under the comforter) and I tried to get my sluggish brain to remember what I was supposed to do. His eyes were closed, and his face was a little pinched but not totally scrunched up like he was in pain, or scared, and he didn’t really seem conscious, but I didn’t know if that was because of the seizure, or because he was asleep when it started and even though it seems like a seizure would wake a person up, his brain was misfiring so… did people sleep through seizures? Or maybe his eyes were just closed because his vision had been spotting out and he just fucking closed them. It was dawning on me, at this comically inopportune time, how pathetically out of my element I was; but no time to ponder that now. 

Justin was on his back, so I rolled him toward me onto his side even though I wasn’t sure I had to. Better safe than sorry, I figured. I left my hand on his shaking hip – comfort via contact, remember – and when he brushed his hand over mine, I breathed a sigh of relief that he was at least marginally conscious. The seizure only lasted about a minute as far as I could tell, but right before it ended, I noticed a growing dark spot on the crotch of his sweatpants. Which… I knew was normal, and pretty common, and that he was fine, but it was the first time I was seeing it and it kind of freaked me. Not because I was squeamish about the kid’s piss, obviously; I’d had my tongue in his ass more times than I could count, I wasn’t about to be bothered by his bodily fluids.

He opened his eyes as soon as it was over, but he was super out of it, like, not answering very easy questions out of it, which I hoped was just because he’d ( _we’d_ ) been wrenched out of a dead sleep. I wrapped him in the blanket I’d pulled off of him and settled him on the sofa so I could change the sheets. The stairs were tricky for him, and his grip was shot to hell and he couldn’t really hang on to me, so I ended up sort of lifting him down. Considering our argument the day before (and a number of past hissy fits), I was trying in a very vague way not to baby him, but I figured that didn’t extend to leaving him to fall back asleep in his own piss at 3 a.m. when he was floating off somewhere in space.

I took care of the bed, then I collected him from the sofa, where he was curled in on himself and staring at the ceiling in a daze, and brought him into the bathroom to clean him up. He just followed where I led him, still hadn’t said a word, and while I was mildly worried about that, my exhaustion won out and I was just grateful he didn’t fight me when I started undressing him. We were both very much not up for a shower, so I pulled his pants off and sat him on the toilet, and wiped the piss off of him with a washcloth while he leaned forward heavily on my shoulders.

(And if I was a little gratified – and a little disgusted with myself for that gratification, I’m not _that_ much of a deviant – that he was half hard by the time I was done, that was no one’s business but mine.)

When he was suitably piss-free, I sat him up and made sure he was steady before I went to grab clean clothes out of his duffle bag, and when I came back, he was slumped forward with his face in his hands. He let me pull him up, and cooperated when I tapped his legs so he’d lift them for me to slide on his briefs and sweats, but I had to peel his hands away from his face to put his t-shirt on, and when I did, he was crying. Shit.

I pulled him to my chest, cupping the back of his head, and he pressed his forehead against my neck. He was soft and warm and I shivered when he wrapped his arms around me and sniffled against my chest. Jesus. Could I just save us all a lot of time and energy and lock him in the loft so nothing could hurt him? Well, except for me, probably, if history served.

I rubbed circles on his back and kept up a low, steady stream of, “It’s okay, Sunshine, it’ll get better, it won’t always be like this, you’re doing fine, you can stay here as long as you need, there’s no rush, you’re doing great, we’re doing fine.” Etc, etc. After the bashing, he’d had this hang up about people expecting him to be fine long before he reasonably could have been. Hell, he still wasn’t completely over it, any idiot could see that. It had taken too long, but eventually I’d figured out that it helps him to feel seen; to know that I know he’s struggling, and that it’s okay. That there’s no ticking clock on his recovery.

To be fair, one of the reasons it had taken me so long to figure that out was because it was always the last thing I wanted when I was struggling. I needed the arms around me, sure – something I’d never fucking admit out loud, obviously, but Justin, Justin had always known – but when anyone tried to reassure me like I was doing for him, I’d freak and push them away. And you can psychoanalyze that at your leisure, but the point is, Justin did need it, and I knew that by then. And even though I was struggling to be as gentle and kind as he needed, frankly, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t at least have tried to do for him. Especially when we didn’t have an audience.

He stopped sniffling eventually, and he tilted his face up to me wearing that same forlorn expression. His eyes still had that slightly vacant look they’d had since the seizure ended, but they were puffy and red now, and his face was flushed from crying and, I don’t fucking know, okay… I leaned down and pressed my lips to his because I didn’t know what else to do with the fucking avalanche of emotions that was crashing over me. He inhaled sharply in surprise, but when I tried to pull away, he lifted up onto his toes and pressed himself more firmly against me. But—

 _Fuck,_ _what the fuck was I doing?!_

I pulled back sharply and pushed him away with a death grip on his shoulders, immediately regretting every decision I’d ever made. Things were so fucking… amorphous between us, A; and I was definitely taking advantage of him with how out of it he still was, big fucking B. And I wasn’t even sure I _wanted_ to be kissing him. Fucking _fuck._

So, pissed at myself now and busy slamming a steel door on any misguided feelings that were currently staging an invasion, I ignored the fucking puppy dog eyes staring up at me and led him back to bed and tucked him in. And then spent the better part of the next hour silently willing him not to remember any of this in the morning.

It was just the adrenaline rush, obviously. The natural high of the relief that he was okay confusing my natural responses.

Obviously.

*

He didn’t remember.

When we woke up in the morning, he knew that he’d had a seizure during the night, but he didn’t really remember it, and surprisingly, he didn’t really want details. He asked if I was okay, if he was okay (and let’s not pretend to be surprised at the order he asked that in), and whether it was similar to the other two he’d had or something new. He felt mostly okay, aside from some fatigue and soreness. And that was the extent of the conversation.

There _was_ a part of me that was morbidly curious about what his reaction would have been to my fucking psychotic episode, but… he didn’t need one more goddamn thing to deal with, and I really wasn’t interested in him packing his bag and fleeing.

I made toast and coffee while he showered, and despite my very well-reasoned arguments for him staying in bed, I ended up dropping him off at PIFA on my way to the office.

*

I texted him a few times throughout the day about dumb shit I really didn’t need to be bothering him about – what time did he need to be picked up again? (I hadn’t forgotten), what did he have for lunch? (aka, did you eat? – who the fuck was I, his mother?), what building should I pick him up at? (obviously his studio). We both knew what I was doing, but he responded quickly every time, and he didn’t tease me about it the way he definitely would have – and should have, let’s be honest – before Fiddlergate.

Which made me realize that we’d been dancing around what in holy hell we thought we were doing, what the fuck we were to each other now, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that conversation. And to add insult to injury, I was fucking embarrassed that I was even worried about it. What was it about this asshole that had turned me into a goddamn muncher? He’d given me no reason to think he’d want any more to do with me once he was better, and really, what had changed since the Rage party? He was staying with me because I’d insisted, because he was scared, and because Daphne was out of town and he didn’t have any other good options. If the seizures weren’t happening, or more specifically, if the first one hadn’t happened twenty feet from me, we’d still barely be in contact, still be coolly friendly when we ran into each other.

And god, I hated to admit it, but that had been killing me. Even more than his being with the fiddler, because aside from when we were arguing about _our conflicting love languages_ – his disgusting words, not mine, shouted at me during one particularly colorful queenout – we’d always been so easy with each other. I wasn’t tense; I didn’t have to police myself around him; I could just… be. I lied to him, I was cruel to him, sure, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

So even though at that point, I didn’t really care why he was staying with me as long as he was staying – so I could ignore the images of him seizing alone in Daphne’s empty apartment that kept fucking flashing through my mind – in those fleeting moments when I was completely honest with myself, I didn’t like the idea that his motivations were purely fear- and convenience-based.

*

I picked him up around 4 to drop him off for the dinner shift before I headed back to work for a couple of hours. I’d stood my ground this time, and he’d eventually accepted my argument that having three seizures in four days made taking the bus nerve wracking at best, and dangerous at worst.

I met the guys at the diner around 7 to find Justin and Debbie both working. I’d obviously eaten there a million times when he’d been on over the last few months, and like I said, we’d been at least cordial since the initial awkwardness passed a few weeks after he’d left. And things _really_ improved when our friends stopped being fucking awkward about it, jesus. But now… I don’t know. I was really fucking enjoying having this secret, and I had to stop myself from laughing imagining Debbie shrieking if she knew her precious Sunshine and I had shared a bed for the last four nights.

I caught Justin’s eye for a fraction of a second when he brought us our waters, and the way his mouth quirked up told me he was thinking the same thing.

The four of us went to Woody’s for a while, then three drinks and a blowjob later Emmett, Ted, and I headed to Babylon while Mikey ran home to bone the professor. I’d planned to stay awhile, drinking and drugging and fucking the stress out of my system, but after a drink and a quick fuck in the back room, the interrupted sleep I’d been getting caught up with me, and I went home before Justin’s shift was even over.

I showered quickly and fell into bed, and it wasn’t until he came in a little after midnight that I realized how dark the loft was. Some inconsiderate asshole had turned off all the lights.

“Hey,” he said once he’d trudged up to the bedroom.

“Hey. Good shift?”

“Yeah, I need to shower though,” he chuckled, sniffing his shirt and grimacing. He couldn’t stand smelling like grease for any longer than he had to, so he almost always showered off the diner stink as soon as he got home.

I was half asleep by the time he came out, so between that and the darkness, it took me a while to realize he was standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed, freshly scrubbed and wearing sweats and fidgeting. I rolled onto my back.

“Problem, Sunshine?”

“Oh I…” he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “Um, no. I’m being stupid.”

 _Oh_. Was he seriously feeling awkward getting into a bed I was already in? 

“Get in bed, idiot,” I grumbled, too tired to argue with him.

He laughed a little, and I stayed awake just long enough to make sure he crawled in. 

*

Of course, my blessed, restful beauty sleep only lasted for a couple of hours, because right around 2 a.m. – and what the fuck was it with 2 a.m.? – I was squeezed awake. My eyes popped open when I started struggling to breathe to find Justin wrapped completely around me, his legs around my waist, his arms around my neck – and how the hell had he gotten his limbs under my body? – and he was squeezing the everloving shit out of me, his breath coming in sharp, hot gasps against my face.

At least he wasn’t screaming?

But the fucker’s a lot stronger than he looks, and I really couldn’t breathe. I pushed myself into a sitting position, hoping to dislodge him, but alas, no such luck. He just ended up in my lap, his chest pressed against mine, clinging to me like a fucking barnacle, and I felt him rub his cheek against mine as he squeezed me tighter; his heart was pounding against my chest, and his cock was pressing into my stomach, and it was fucking painful where he was digging his fingers into my back _._ When I reached up to pry his arms from around my neck, he made this high-pitched keening noise I’d never heard before. I jumped and dropped his arms, and my heart started to pound.

I tried to soothe him, running my hands up and down his back and murmuring, “Sunshine, you’re all right, come on Justin, you’re fine;” but he was freaking out and wasn’t waking up, and when I eventually succeeded in prying his arms off me, he ended up kicking me in the stomach while he scrambled off my lap, and bolted out of bed.

Trying to catch my breath, I jumped up and turned on the light, and tried to figure out what I was working with. He seemed to be looking at me, but I could tell from the vacant, unfocused look in his eyes that he was still asleep, and I’d done enough nightmare vs. night terror googling after the bashing to figure that was what was going on. But _fuck._ With all his violent thrashing, he’d never actually gotten out of bed before, and fear shot through me because I wasn’t completely sure what to do. I’d never even seen someone sleepwalk before, and it was messing with my head because it was him, but… not _really_ , because he was fucking _asleep._ Right?

I took a hesitant step toward him and froze when he turned and fled down the stairs, slamming his shoulder against the doorframe in the process. It took a few beats for me to kick back into gear, which was fine, really, because when I followed him and grabbed his arm, he just wrenched it out of my grip and started screaming, knocking everything off the kitchen counter and throwing the barstools to the floor. So _clearly_ I had helped the situation.

Whatever part of his brain was running the show wasn’t being remotely careful, and he stumbled off balance and fell against one of the pillars, and there was no way he wasn’t going to be covered in bruises in the morning. Bang up job I was doing keeping an eye on him, huh?

When he stumbled again, I saw my opening, and I grabbed him in a bear hug without really thinking about it. His panicked thrashing knocked me off balance, and I _just_ managed to catch myself on my knees so I didn’t crush him when he fell backward, and I frantically slid my hand behind his head before it didn’t hit the floor. I don’t know who the fuck was watching over us in that moment, but thank god someone was. I pinned him down while he struggled and screamed and smacked me, and I started yelling – fuck 2 a.m., I was panicking – so he’d hear me over his own wordless screaming.

“JUSTIN. STOP. PLEASE STOP. YOU’RE OKAY. IT’S A DREAM. YOU’RE SAFE. YOU’RE IN THE LOF-- OW _FUCK_.”

The charmer head butted me so hard I tasted blood in my mouth, and then he slammed his head back down on the hand that was still protecting it from the floor, grinding my knuckles into the hardwood. Goddammit we’d _both_ be covered in bruises in the morning, and I had a fucking presentation coming up!

“JUSTIN, PLEASE, _PLEASE CALM DOWN_.”

In a last-ditch attempt to calm him, I lowered my body onto his, covering him fully, and I pressed his forehead to my neck, hoping the weight would help him feel secure and calm, like those weighted blankets, you know? It had worked in the past, and fuck if it didn’t work now. He stopped struggling pretty quickly, and whether it was because he felt secure, or because I had him mostly immobilized, I really didn’t fucking care as long as it was working. He let out this wretched whimper-sob, and I felt his body relax beneath me.

I took a minute to calm myself the fuck down – Christ, my heart was pounding – before I pulled away slightly to look down at him, and when I did, I let out a disbelieving bark of laughter. He was… asleep. I mean, he’d been asleep the whole fucking time obviously, but he was just… asleep. Like, peacefully. His cheeks were flushed, and he had tear tracks running down his face, but he was breathing deeply and steadily, and he looked so fucking angelic. Hah! I laughed again as I turned my head to survey the disaster area formerly known as my kitchen.

So. What to do now. I could have tried to wake him up, now that the night terror was over. Depending on how lucid he was, I could have made sure he was okay, let him talk if he needed to, comforted him, whatever he needed, and gotten him back into bed. But I hated to wake him up, especially since his sleep had been so shitty recently. And I was reasonably sure I could get him up off the floor and back to bed without his assistance. And it would probably be better if he stayed asleep until the morning anyway; there was something about middle-of-the-night darkness that always makes everything feel so much scarier, so much more… hopeless.

Okay. I'd let him sleep if I could.

I struggled picking him up, which I’m only admitting because his build is one of his best attributes in bed. When you’re short and blonde and young, people expect a certain kind of performance from you, but he's so much stronger than he looks. And once he’d learned what the fuck to _do_ in bed, he’d dominated our fucks more times than I’d care to admit. My point is, he’s smaller than me, but he's solid. And dead weight is a bitch to lift.

I managed, though, pulling him up into a sitting position and wedging his forehead against my neck, sliding my arms under his knees and behind his shoulders. Standing up was the tricky part, and I definitely didn’t win any points for style, but I managed not to pitch all the way forward when I staggered a few steps trying to find my balance, and I got him back into bed and under the covers without disturbing him. Which honestly wasn’t much of a feat; once he’s out, he’s _out_ ; he’s always been that way. Which had made getting the little darling off to school on time an issue on more than a few occasions, but I digress.

I turned off the lamp and collapsed beside him. I’d worry about the kitchen in the morning.

*

The next thing I was aware of, the loft was full of light and I was alone in bed. I turned my head and found Justin standing at the top of the stairs looking down, presumably at the destruction below, and when a minute went by without him moving or saying anything, I said, “Hey.”

He turned around slowly with these huge eyes and said, “What the fuck,” and I started to laugh, because he was right. What the actual fuck.

“Do you remember anything?”

I doubted it, since he was fucking asleep at the time.

“Please tell me that wasn’t a seizure.”

“God no. A nightmare. Well, night terror I guess. Do you remember it at all?”

“A… what? What do you mean, ‘night terror, I guess’?”

“Wellll… we were asleep, and you had a nightmare, and you… I guess you were acting it out or something. Or maybe you were just freaking out, I don’t know. You were sleepwalking?” I snorted. “Sleep-destroying.”

“I… but I’ve never done that before, have I?”

“Nope, and my loft thanks you for that. It was the first time you’d ever gotten out of bed. You usually just scream and thrash, not… nothing like this. It was intense.”

“God, are you okay?”

He took a step closer, and I guess I was in shadow before because his face fell when he got a good look at me.

“Oh god, Brian, your lip. Did I do that?”

Actually I’d completely forgotten about it, but now that he’d reminded me, it started throbbing. I winced and probed it a little with my finger.

“It probably looks worse than it—”

“Fuck, your knuckles! Jesus, did you hit something?”

He took my hand gently and brushed his thumb over my now bruised and swollen knuckles, and my hand jerked a little at the contact.

“Fuck, what happened?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. What happened?”

He was still holding my hand and his eyes were boring into mine, and I sighed. As desperately as I wanted to brush it off, I knew he wasn’t in the mood for that.

“You— we ended up on the floor,” I explained, gesturing toward where we’d been lying. “I was pinning you down, and you were fucking terrified, so you were trying to get me off of you, and you head butted me and then slammed your head onto my hand. I had it on the floor so you wouldn’t smash your pretty little head on the wood.”

He looked unnecessarily sad and scared, and I wanted to make him understand.

“I’m fine, Sunshine. It barely hurts. You were asleep, and you were scared, and you didn’t know what was going on. I was fucking pinning you to the floor, I’m _glad_ you tried to fight me off.”

“Let me get you ice. I can’t… believe I hurt you like that,” he said, turning away and standing up.

“No, you didn’t—”

“I’m getting ice!” he called, already rushing to the freezer.

Perfect. Of fucking course he felt guilty. What I didn’t know was how to convince him that he shouldn’t fucking feel guilty.

I grabbed his arm when he handed me the ice pack and pulled him back down onto the bed, keeping ahold of his wrist.

“Listen. I’m glad you fought me. It’s good to know you have _some_ self-preservation instincts, since history isn’t exactly on your side there. Look at me, I’m fine. But what about you? I don’t think you hurt yourself too badly, I tried…” I winced again, poking at my lip, “to not let that happen.”

“I… I think I’m fine. Nothing hurts.”

“How’s your shoulder?” I asked, touching it lightly. “You hit it pretty hard.”

“I… no, it feels okay,” he said, rotating it a little. He brushed a finger lightly over my knuckles. “I just… Jesus. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with all this shit again. I’m just… I’m sorry, Brian.”

“Okay, stop the pity train; I meant it when I said I don’t mind. Although I can’t say I’m looking forward to doing my presentations this week with a split lip.”

“Shit,” he said softly, bringing his hand up and so, so gently running his thumb along my cut lip. I used everything in me not to flinch away. Then he leaned his forehead against mine and smiled softly for a second before pulling back and quirking his mouth up at the corner. The fuck?

“Think you’ll make it through the day looking like that?”

Little shit.


	5. Well what do you want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Brian had the Corvette at this point, and no offence if you liked that look for him but I always thought he looked like he was in a clown car. So I took artistic license and pretended he still had a Jeep!  
> There’s a *very* minor panic attack in this chapter, so I’ve added it to the tags. But it’s seriously very mild and it’s described through the eyes of an outside observer (Brian), so hopefully it’s not an issue for anyone.

Exhausted as I was, I actually managed to get some work done at the office, and Cynthia only had to cover for me once when I spaced out in a meeting. Under her usual snark, she’d sounded sincerely concerned when she’d first gotten a look at me – “Jesus, Brian, who’d you piss off?” – but thankfully she’d worked for me long to know when to leave something alone.

Since my options, socially speaking, were either get it the fuck over with or avoid the guys for a week, I figured I might as well meet them at the diner after work; and unsurprisingly it turned out that I’d correctly anticipated their charming reactions to my now brightly colored lip and mangled hand.

“What the fuck happened? Who did this to you?! We should go find them!” – good ol’ Mikey, ready for vengeance—

“What’d you do to piss off Mel?” – Emmett, laughing—

“You know, Bri, with your face out of commission maybe I’ll snag your tricks this week.” – the ever-delusional Ted—

“Finally got what was coming to you, huh?” snarked Debbie, but with a wink and a massive piece of pie I definitely hadn’t ordered.

I fended them off with some vague bullshit about an accident at the gym, and I tried not to wince while I ate.

Justin didn’t work on Tuesdays, so I wasn’t surprised to find him doing homework at the dining room table when I went home to change before heading to Babylon. We’d left the kitchen a mess when we rushed out the door earlier, me to work, him to class, but he’d obviously taken pains to return everything to its place. And, I realized as I glanced around, he’d cleaned.

“You want to come?” I asked, pulling off my shirt on my way to the bedroom.

“I’ve got to finish this before tomorrow.”

He clearly wasn’t in a rush though, because he followed me and stood at the top of the stairs, watching me pick out a shirt. Now, it wasn’t like he hadn’t watched me change a hundred times; he was, after all, a horny teenager fucking a sex god. But I could tell something was up, so I pointedly raised an eyebrow and almost immediately regretted it when he sighed and said, “Hey… Brian.” I could already tell this was going to be annoying.

“Hey, Justin,” I smirked.

“Maybe I should go back to Daphne’s. She’ll be back in a few days, and…” he trailed off.

Jesus fuck not this again.

“And?”

“And look at you. I can tell you’re in pain even though you’re trying to hide it, and you look exhausted. I don’t want to keep doing this to you.”

“You know Sunshine,” I said, turning to pull a pair of jeans out of my dresser, “sometimes I wish you were just a little more selfish.”

Because look, teenage drama princess shit aside, he’s one of the most unselfish people I know. And to be fair to him, he hadn’t been nearly as bad in the last year as when he’d first crashed into my life. And maybe the bashing had something to do with that; maybe this was one of those permanent personality changes they’d scared us with or maybe it was an effect of the PTSD, or maybe he’d just fucking grown up and matured. But whatever the reason, this was who he was now. And if an image of a certain starving musician is flashing through your head, take a step back and look at the way things were going with us when he met the fiddler: downhill, and fast. And yeah, maybe the whole shitshow could have been avoided if we’d done this or that, but realistically, he’d made the right choice. He’d needed to leave. But now…

His face was scrunched up in confusion when he finally asked, “What do you mean?”

“You feel so guilty when someone’s even slightly inconvenienced by you. Daphne and her sofa, apparently, notwithstanding. I wish you’d just accept that this is what people do for each other and take the help.”

“Like you would?”

Well… okay, touché, kid.

But, “You and I are not the same. You don’t have all my hang-ups, darling,” I smirked. “You’d be there for Daphne in a heartbeat, right? Even if it wasn’t perfectly convenient for you?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So, other than this completely time-wasting guilt you feel about inconveniencing me, is there a reason you want to leave?”

“Well…”

Oh fuck, I wanted to swallow my words back down. I just opened a can of worms, right?

“I don’t want to hurt you again.”

Yup. Can open. Worms everywhere.

“My lip really doesn’t hurt that much.”

He rolled his eyes at my desperate, obvious attempt to put off this conversation and whined, “Briaaan.”

“I thought we already talked about this. My potential discomfort is pretty irrelevant when we’re talking about your life.”

“Come on, what are the odds I’ll actually die this week?”

Okay, not touching that. “Fine, your wellbeing.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Justin…”

“What are we going to do when Daphne comes back? Just go back to how things were?”

“Well if that’s what you w—"

“It’s not what I want.”

I hesitated, super uncomfortably aware of the ramifications of this conversation, but he just stared at me, waiting for me to make a move. Finally, I drawled, “Welllll what do you want?”

And apparently, he’d picked up a few deflection techniques from yours truly, because instead of answering he just smiled kind of sadly and shrugged, and started to turn away. But no, absolutely not. I couldn’t let it end there _now_ , not when we were already this far down the rabbit hole, not when I’d be risking having to start this over from the beginning at some point in the future, so I said again, “What do you want?”, louder this time, and shit my heart was pounding. My palms were fucking sweating, and Brian Kinney does _not_ get sweaty palms.

He turned back and looked at me for a few seconds, like he was studying me, and then he took my face in his hands, lifted up onto his toes – and I wondered vaguely if he knew what that does to my stomach – and kissed me, so softly my bruised lip barely throbbed. Then the fucker cocked his head to the side, smiled, and went back to his fucking homework.

So… _what. the. fuck?_ What the fuck did that mean? Did he… did he want to… to…

To stop myself from spinning out, I headed out to Babylon, squeezing his shoulder on my way past him so he’d know I wasn’t ignoring the gesture. His fucking ambiguous as fuck gesture.

I stayed out later than I should have, hoping that enough dancing and blowjobs and E would help turn my mind off sufficiently for me to have a fucking subconscious breakthrough or some shit, and I was completely wasted by the time I went home. Don’t worry, Mikey drove me, just like old times.

So thank god he was already asleep. He was on his back with his head turned toward my side, his lips slightly parted as he breathed steadily in and out, and he didn’t stir when I flopped down next to him on my stomach. I lay there staring at his mouth until I passed out, remembering how soft his lips had been; how my cock had perked up a bit just from that brief contact.

*

He was gone when I woke up in the morning.

He was working the breakfast shift that day, so he’d had to be at the diner an hour before I even had to be up, and what the fuck had I expected? That he’d leave a fucking note on his pillow? But still, in the sober light of morning, I was starting to feel uneasy about the fact that we hadn’t talked or really even seen each other since he’d kissed me. Was he upset that I’d gone out after he’d taken that risk? That I’d left without fucking _saying_ anything?

Shit.

*

A few hours later, I was sitting in my office trying to convince myself to stop being a fucking coward and just go to the diner for lunch. I could catch Justin at the end of his shift and try to gauge where his head was at, whether I’d hurt him or pissed him off, or whether I was being an idiot and worrying for nothing. Because when I imagined asking him what he wanted from this thing we were doing _again,_ I wanted to run for the fucking hills. Like I basically had last night.

Saved by the bell, I thought with a cowardly flash of relief when my phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Debbie Novotny’s on the line for you,” Cynthia said, which was weird because Debbie _never_ called me in the middle of the workday. And rarely any other time. Her style was more showing up at the loft uninvited and forcing her way in to bring me food and smoke a joint and have a deep, painful conversation. Not picking up the phone like a civilized human being. I knew she and Justin were both at the diner this morning, so the pit in my stomach and I both knew before Cynthia connected us that something was wrong. 

“Put her through.”

I waited for the click of the connection, then, “Hey, Deb.”

“Brian, honey?”

Oh god, ‘honey’? “What’s wrong?”

“Well, Sunshine’s not feeling well, and he asked me to call you. Why is he asking me to call you?”

“What do you mean, ‘not feeling well’?”

“Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was on something. He’s pale as hell, and he keeps spacing out on the customers, and he’s shivering like it’s the middle of fuckin’ winter. And when I made him sit down, he told me to call you.”

Fucking fuck. We knew people sometimes felt seizures coming on, but he’d never had that kind of warning before.

“Put him on the phone.”

I sat there tapping my foot impatiently while I listened to mumbling, then someone fumbling the phone, then a very shaky, “Brian?”

“How you doing, Sunshine?”

“I feel all… I don’t know. I feel really bad, and Debbie said I look like shit. Something’s… not right. I just feel really bad.”

“Okay Justin, stay right there, okay? I’ll be there in 10 minutes. Put Debbie back on.”

He didn’t respond, but a second later Debbie’s voice was coming through, “Brian, wha—”

“I’m coming to get him. Make him sit on the floor, and don’t let him move. Don’t let him get up, okay? I’ll be right there.” I hung up quickly, already throwing the papers scattered across my desk into my briefcase. I breezed past Cynthia’s desk, tossing out some excuse and that I’d see her tomorrow, and 9 minutes later I pulled up outside the diner, thanking the gods that traffic was light.

And then immediately cursing the gods when I saw the moron on his way out the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted, slamming my door and hurrying over to him. He was pale and shaky, and god, if he fell on the pavement... Debbie was a step behind him with her hand on his arm, so that was something, but still. This wasn’t exactly ‘don’t let him move’.

“He saw you pull up,” she said, correctly reading the thunderous expression on my face. “What the hell’s going on, Brian? What’s wrong with Sunshine? He won’t tell me anything. And why the hell are _you_ picking him up? Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?!”

Christ, it was so incredibly not the time. I wrapped one arm around his waist and gripped his shoulder with the other, and I steered him toward the Jeep with a “I’m taking him home, thanks, Deb!” thrown over my shoulder.

“Home where?!” she screeched behind us as I helped him into the passenger seat.

“How do you feel?” I asked, pulling away from the curb as smoothly as I could. His wordless groaning as he dropped his head into his hands didn’t exactly inspire confidence, so I picked up some speed. Even so, a block away from the loft, most of his right side started seizing.

So close. “Shit. Okay.”

I started to pull over, but he looked up and said sort of breathlessly, “no, keep driving,” so I drove the rest of the way and parked, keeping one eye on the road and one eye on him. He’d leaned his head back against the seat and covered his eyes with his hand, so all I could see of his face was a grimace. I rested my hand on his leg to wait it out.

It stopped after a couple of minutes, and when it was over, he moaned and leaned forward, catching his breath while I went around to his side and rubbed his back.

“Think you can make it upstairs?”

“I – I think I need help.”

A laugh escaped before I could stop it. “I know, Sunshine. Come on,” I said, helping him out of the Jeep.

I wrapped my arm tightly around his waist again and pulled him into my side, encouraging him to lean most of his weight on me. Once we were in the elevator, he sagged against me, weakly gripping my shirt in his hands, and he mumbled “Fuck, I’m tired” in this small voice. I got him inside and helped him lie down on the bed, where he promptly fell asleep while I was pulling his shoes off.

It was a fucking good thing he’d told Debbie to call me. I hadn’t been sure he would, and he’d probably be in an ambulance right now if he hadn’t. And he’d be in pain, and exhausted, and scared of being stuck in a ridiculously uncomfortable bed (seriously, do they make the sheets out of sandpaper?), hooked up to a million fucking monitors, manhandled by strangers, and kept awake by the fluorescent lights and the constant activity and his bone-deep fear of the place. Christ. But here he was, safe and comfortable in my giant, top of the line bed in my quiet loft, with only me manhandling him. Which he’d certainly never complained about before.

So, yeah. Good fucking thing for him that he’d swallowed his neuroses long enough to let Debbie bother me at work.

*

About an hour later, I was sitting at the dining room table working on a new campaign – this nasty hot sauce that was seeing some new competition – when I heard a noise I couldn’t immediately identify coming from the bedroom. Without taking my eyes off the paper in my hand, I raised my voice slightly and called, “Justin?”, but he was already coming down the stairs. He was breathing too fast and he was white as a sheet, and he was looking at me with this panicked, wide-eyed expression. 

“Hey Sunshine, come sit down,” I said, in the soothing Sunshine’s-having-a-panic-attack voice I’d refined over dozens of episodes. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I led him back to the bed, sat next to him on the edge, and started rubbing circles on his back. Like he usually does when he’s trying to calm himself down, he wrapped his arms around his waist and dug his fingers into his skin hard enough to leave marks, then he bent forward and rocked back and forth a little. Before he could slow down his breathing though, he started sniffing and whimpering, and honestly, sometimes he just needs permission to fall apart.

It had taken me a long fucking time to internalize the fact that he’d grown up with the same bullshit ‘be a man’ baggage that I had, and as emotionally evolved as he is, he still struggles with it. I help him slow down his breathing, I tell him to stop pacing and sit down before he collapses, but I never tell him to stop crying. Fuck if I’m contributing to fucking toxic masculinity, and as uncomfortable as it makes me sometimes (fine, most of the time), I don’t hate how emotionally open he is. He wears his fucking heart on his sleeve, and there’s something oddly reassuring about that. And, yes, exhausting, but reassuring too, surprisingly.

“Go ahead, let it out,” I whispered in his ear, and he nodded and gasped out a sob.

He cried for a few minutes, but he never dissolved into the gasping, gulping sobs I was expecting, and his back stopped trembling under my hand as he eventually calmed down on his own. Pretty minor, as panic attacks go. When his breathing was steady, he covered my hand with his and started to say something, but he closed his mouth after a second and shrugged.

“What’s up?”

“I think I need to sleep more?”

“Sure. I’ll get you some water.”

He was under the covers by the time I got back up there, but he sat up without a fuss to drink the water I always force feed him after panic attacks and crying jags. And particularly bad nightmares. And marathon sex sessions. Dr. Kinney’s cure-all.

“I’m sorry you had to leave work… I just… felt really bad, and Debbie wanted to send me home. Which would have been fine, but I wasn’t sure I’d make it if I had to walk, and I didn’t want to end up at the fucking hospital.”

I nodded. “I would have been pissed if I’d had to come break you out of there, which is why I told you to call.”

It wasn’t just that, though. Since the bashing, Justin hates being vulnerable in public. Back when he was living with me, he rarely even got drunk if I wasn’t around, aside from the occasional solo nervous breakdown at Babylon. And considering how badly the seizures had been messing with him, and how off he was after them, the last thing he wanted was to have one on the street, with no one familiar around to help him if he was too incapacitated to help himself.

“Did you have a nightmare?” I asked, wondering what had prompted the panic attack. As far as I knew, they’d become pretty rare.

“No, I… I woke up and I was just thinking about… everything.”

His eyelids were drooping and he was wriggling back under the covers, so I leaned over and ran my hand down his arm. “We can deal with ‘everything’ later. Go back to sleep.”

I knew his fears about the seizures were compounded by his worry that I was going to pack him off to Daphne’s on Saturday without a second glance. And obviously Daphne would be there for him – he’s lucky to have that girl in his life – but… not to toot my own horn here, but she’s not me. It was becoming increasingly inevitable that we were going to have to talk about – ugh – _us,_ soon. Especially after that fucking kiss. I still don’t know what the fuck that meant.

I checked on him a few times over the next few hours, but he didn’t wake up again or have any nightmares. He finally woke up around 5 and shuffled into the dining room, disheveled and flushed.

I cleared my throat.

“Sleep okay?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe I slept that long.”

I shrugged. “Guess you needed it.”

I’d thought about that earlier, when he’d been asleep long enough that I’d started to wonder if it was normal, so I’d done some googling.

He just nodded, so I said, “It’s normal, I checked,” and rolled my eyes at the little knowing smile he gave me, the one he can’t keep off his face when I imply that I might give half a shit about his welfare. Fucker.

We both ended up staying in, him because he was still dragging, me because he was still sort of jumpy and nervous and I could tell he didn’t want to be on his own, even though he wouldn’t have said anything.

And it was a nice night, spending time together; and the reminder of how spectacularly I’d fucked up was like a little kick in the balls every time I was reminded.

We ordered food, and while we were waiting for it, I showed him what I was thinking for the hot sauce campaign and he laughed loudly at how terrible their previous ads were. What can I say? The kid’s got good taste.

I kept glancing at him while we ate, willing myself to broach the subject, to say something a tad more elegant than ‘what the fuck was that last night?’ It was the perfect opportunity, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to start, and bravo me, I never did. But he didn’t either, and I wondered if he was as apprehensive as I was. 

He did, however, bring up something completely unconstructive that I’d been trying my best not to think about. We’d been joking about Emmett’s latest flavor of the week when there was a lull in the conversation, and I glanced up from my food when he cleared his throat, a mixture of hope and terror settling in my stomach when I saw his nervousness.

“So. Part of what caused the panic attack earlier was thinking about what might have happened if you hadn’t been at Babylon on Thursday.”

Great. Perfect use of his time, right?

“I’ve thought about that, too.”

“I don’t know…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I would have done. What I would have been _able_ to do.”

“Well, you did have a friend back there. Todd was going to get help when he found me.”

“Todd? I… I didn’t even know he was there.”

Not that it really mattered, but… “Do you remember who you were with? Or what you were doing? Besides the obvious,” I grinned.

“No, I… Did I…”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Was I… unzipped?”

“Oh. No, you were fully dressed when I swooped in to save the day.”

“So, it must have happened before or after.”

“Or your trick was considerate enough to zip you up.”

“He wasn’t there when you got there?”

I shrugged, “No way to know if you don’t remember who it was. There were some guys standing around. And Todd.”

“It wasn’t Todd.”

I definitely hadn’t meant that, and just the image made me snort. “I know.” Nothing against Todd, but Justin could have had him a thousand times over and he’d never shown any interest.

“So, you were in the back room already?”

“Mid-blowjob.”

“And Todd, what? Sought you out? He knows we’re not...”

Well fuck, kid. Twist the knife. “But he knows we _were_ …” I crinkled my eyes at him. “And he didn’t know if you were there with anyone, so he took a shot when he saw me.”

“What did he say?”

“That something was wrong with you,” I shrugged, “He thought you were having a seizure.”

“And you came over to help.”

At least he wasn’t dumb enough to make that an actual question.

“Yes,” I sighed, “I made the great sacrifice of abandoning my trick to follow Todd to where our fair Sunshine was sitting on the bacteria-ridden floor.”

“And you helped me.”

I felt my expression soften even though he was being an idiot. And making me squirm. I mean, had I not already made it painfully obvious that I still fucking cared about him? Goddammit all to hell.

“Obviously.”

“But if you hadn’t, Todd probably would have called an ambulance.”

In any other context, it probably would have been funny the way we grimaced in concert.

“I can’t imagine going to the hospital messed up like that. By myself. It’d just be a thousand times worse.”

No shit. I thought I’d already spent enough time ruminating on that but apparently not; apparently this was the perfect time for my mind to paint a detailed picture of him sitting on a gurney, confused and scared and alone. I felt a little sick.

“And if Todd hadn’t been there either… Fuck. I remember you helped me walk. My leg was messed up? And I fell asleep like five minutes after? Shit. I might’ve just been passed out in the back room.”

He let out a nervous chuckle that did nothing but alert me to how much he was starting to freak out again, so I reached over and put my hand on top of his where he was restlessly drumming his fingers on the table.

“Don’t start spiraling. Like you said, Todd was there, and I was there, and I brought you here. It worked out.”

He gave me a shaky smile. “Yeah, it did.”

Well then.

*

He showered while I picked out a movie, and when he came to the sofa, his damp hair was falling into his eyes, his cheeks were flushed from the hot water, and he looked soft and warm in his sweats and my stomach clenched. It was almost excruciating at times, having him there with me, but not _with_ me. Christ, see? Brings out the goddamn muncher in me.

We settled in on opposite ends of the sofa, my feet on the coffee table, his curled under himself like a kid; but every time he changed position, he moved a little closer. I couldn’t tell how intentional it was, but the fact that he was asleep on my shoulder by the end of the movie, his head heavy and warm against me, hinted at a better than 50/50 chance. 

When the credits started rolling, I shook his shoulder, and he blinked up at me sleepily while he waited for his brain to click into gear. When it did, he glanced between us and immediately blushed and moved away, so… again. What the fuck did that mean?

We went to bed and had an uneventful night. He was a little quiet in the morning while we got ready for the day, but I just figured he was still a little off from yesterday and didn’t worry too much about it.

It was Thursday now, Daphne would be back on Saturday, and the clock was ticking to figure our shit out.

‘Hey Justin, why do _you_ think we kissed and then pretended it never happened? Because we’re apparently twelve years old?’

Yeah, that’ll work.


	6. You're supposed to see through my bullshit, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, I realize I play a little fast and loose with HIPAA* in this chapter, but just go with it. (*American law ensuring the privacy of medical information.)  
> Okay. Ready for our guys to put on their big boy pants and Talk? This chapter ended up being way more conversation-heavy than I'd planned, so buckle up.

It was the end of the day, _finally_ , and I was leaving a shit-tastic meeting with the hot sauce people. They’d had an infuriatingly lukewarm reaction to my (incredible) initial campaign ideas, assholes, so I wasn’t exactly feeling all sunshine and roses when my phone rang. So distracted and yeah okay, mildly fuming, and assuming it was a client, I answered without checking the number.

“Brian Kinney.”

“Hi Mr. Kinney, my name’s Meghan, I’m a nurse at the Pittsburgh Institute of Fine Arts medical center.” Oh fuck. “We have you down as Justin Taylor’s emergency contact, is that correct?”

I swallowed down some bile and practically barked, “Yes, what happened?”. I was already hurrying to my office, and I thanked the scheduling gods that my day was over. “Is he okay?”

“He’s okay, yes, but he fainted in class.” Fuck he was _fainting_ now? “He was dehydrated, so we have him on IV fluids. I’m calling because he’s almost ready to be discharged, and we’d prefer to discharge him into someone’s care. Is that something you can do?”

“I– yes, I’m leaving now. He fainted?”

“Yes. He was—"

Oh _fuck_. “Did he hit his head? He has a history—"

“No, Mr. Kinney, we have all that in his records. He was sitting down, and he only lost consciousness for a few seconds. He told us he’s been feeling nauseous as a side effect of a new medication, and that he’s been under more stress than usual recently and hasn’t been eating or sleeping well. All of which would contribute to dehydration and exhaustion.”

Well that was fucking news to me. I wracked my brain trying to remember if he’d really eaten last night, or just picked at his food. I didn’t remember noticing.

“He should rest tonight, but as long as he takes better care of himself, eats and sleeps better, stays hydrated, gets enough rest, he’ll be perfectly fine.”

I sighed, knowing exactly how likely that was.

“Okay, Meghan, thank you. I’m on my way.”

“Great. We should have him off the IV in about 20 minutes.”

It only occurred to me then, once the panic had passed (well, lessened), that it was strange that I was listed as his emergency contact. Wasn’t it? Or had he just given them my number?

“Does he know you’re calling me?”

“He does. He seemed reluctant to bother you, but we told him that we’d have to keep him under observation for a while longer if he was going to leave unaccompanied, and he agreed to let me call you.”

“He wouldn’t want to stay there any longer than he has to.”

“They usually don’t. Okay, we’ll see you soon then, Mr. Kinney.”

“Thank you, Meghan,” I said sincerely, and hung up.

Once I got to the PIFA campus, it was easy to follow the signs to the medical center, a two-story brick building on the north side of campus. I’d been there before anyway, unfortunately, so I more or less remembered where it was, and when I gave his name at the front desk, they directed me right through the swinging double doors into the emergency area.

I found him staring into space in his curtained-off cubicle, curled up in one of those puffy vinyl armchairs they use for infusion therapy. (I might’ve done some research back when Jack was dying.)

He cleared his throat and said, “Hey,” when he saw me. Poor kid looked so dejected.

“Hey. Are you okay? You’re all sweaty,” I pointed out with my usual diplomatic aplomb, putting my hand on his forehead. He was pale and clammy and covered in a sheen of sweat, and I felt my throat tighten.

“Yeah, they said it’s just because of the fluids. A weird side effect.”

 _Of course_ he was having a reaction to the fucking IV fluids. Jesus. Not for the first time, I realized what a miracle it was that they’d managed not to kill him when he was in the hospital for six fucking weeks straight. I pulled up a hard plastic chair and sat down, studying him intently. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged a little and looked away. “I’m embarrassed. But I feel okay,” he said, with an ill-timed shudder that sort of negated his words. But there he went again, being all open with his feelings and shit, telling me he was embarrassed like it was nothing. I swear, I’ll never understand how that comes so naturally to some people. Thank god, though. Imagine if we were both as emotionally repressed (his words) as I am? Fuck.

But anyway, back to that shudder.

“Cold?”

“It’s the fluids.”

“Did you ask for a blanket?”

“I’m fine. I’m almost done, anyway.”

I sighed inwardly, but, fine. Dealing with Justin was, after all, basically a case study in picking your battles. Trust me, Jennifer would back me up on this.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“There’s nothing you could have done, Brian. I just haven’t had much of an appetite.”

“We could have bought plainer food.” Christ, there was that fucking ‘ _we_ ’ again.

He sighed, “I’m fine. I barely even fainted, I just got dizzy so I put my head down on my desk, and everyone freaked out. And I didn’t sleep great last night, so I was tired.”

News to me, I’d slept through the night. Bang-up job I was doing taking care of him, huh?

A nurse walked in then to take out his IV, and it was obvious she’d overheard the last part of our conversation because she said, without preamble, “Honey, everyone freaked out because it took them a few tries to wake you up. You were definitely out.”

And I didn’t, but I could have kissed her. Justin always downplays it when shit’s wrong with him, but I needed to know this stuff if I was going to, oh I don’t know, keep him alive? Christ, it was frustrating. And I knew exactly how hypocritical I was being; if our roles were reversed, I’d have been way more resistant to accepting help than he was being, so it wasn’t like I didn’t understand where he was coming from, but… he was just a kid! I cared about him. I wished he would just let me care without putting a spotlight on it.

“Mr. Kinney?” the nurse said, turning to me.

“Meghan?”

She smiled and nodded. “I’m glad you’re here. And I bet Justin is too, you’re all set to go now, honey. And like the doctor said earlier, you need to rest tonight, and take care of yourself.” She gathered her things and turned to go, raising an eyebrow at me on her way out as if to indicate that it was my job to make sure he followed the doctor’s orders. If the stubborn shit would let me, I’d be happy to.

Said stubborn shit was steady when he stood up, but I grabbed his backpack and slung it over my shoulder anyway. He gave me a long look, but he was still sweaty and pale and he didn’t argue. We were pretty quiet on the ride home, but the pressure was building in me, and by the time we got to the loft I couldn’t hold it in anymore. As soon as I slid the door shut, I rounded on him.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” I bit out, a little angrier than I’d intended, but whatever. I was frustrated as hell, and scared about him being sick, and dreading him leaving again, so, whateverthefuck, anger it was.

“But I’m not– I’m not here for you to fucking baby me, Brian. We just don’t want me lying on the floor for three days, right?”

Motherfucking—no. No. Fuck that bullshit.

“You know that’s not why you’re here! I could have just fucking texted you every day if that was the only reason!” I was yelling now, but I couldn’t stop myself. I hate talking about this emotional shit under normal circumstances, and I was pissed I was having to do it then, on top of all the other reasons I was worked up. But he never was one to take my shit lying down, so he yelled right back, and I could tell he’d been working up to it for a while. Despite my reassuring him until I was fucking blue in the face that I wanted him there.

“Brian, jesus christ, this isn’t what you signed up for! You didn’t know this week was going to go this way when you said I could stay; you didn’t know I was going to be this… this goddamn needy! Why are you even doing this, you don’t owe me anything! And what must you think of yourself, huh? The stud of Liberty Avenue playing fucking nursemaid to his disabled ex? Come on, if you’d known that bratty twink you pulled off the street was going to turn into _this_ , you never would have looked at me twice!”

“I wish I hadn’t!” I shouted back, registering the hurt that flashed across his face, but that wasn’t what I meant. “You wouldn’t be dealing with any of this right now. The seizures, and the panic attacks, and the nightmares. You would be _fine_. You would be happy, and safe, and probably still that annoying fearless brat who wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone, _fuck!_ ” I scrubbed my hands through my hair and fought down the urge to run for the hills and never look back.

“So, you _are_ helping me out of a sense of duty,” he said, and he swayed a little, closing his eyes as all the fight went out of him.

I’d almost forgotten why we were screaming at each other in the first place, and I closed the distance between us and grabbed his arm before he could fall. I pushed him onto the sofa and then sat on the coffee table facing him, knowing I was less likely to yell if I knew that any stray spit was going to land on his face. I patted his knee awkwardly and shook my head. This was painful as fuck but I had to make him understand, so I took a deep breath. Now or never.

“You’re supposed to see through my bullshit, right?” He’d told me that so many times, and he smiled a little now, remembering. “I’m not going to just leave you to deal with the fallout of prom by yourself. _But_ ” I hurried on, when he opened his mouth, “I mostly want you here this week because _I_ know how to do this. Even if Daphne were home, it makes more sense for you to be here because I’ve done this before, all of it besides the seizures. And who else would be able to put up with your dramatics?” I asked, quirking my mouth up, trying to lighten the mood.

But he was shaking his head before I’d even finished. “But I know it’s more than you bargained for. I see it on your face when something goes wrong, it freaks you out.”

“Guess I’ll have to work on my poker face, then,” I joked, but he just stared back at me. “Look, in some ways you and I aren’t that different. You feel guilty because you think you’re a burden. You’re not. You assume I regret inviting you here because I’m having to make more time for you than I have for a while now. I don’t. What exactly do you think I’ve been doing with my time that’s so fucking important anyway?”

He didn’t quite smile at that, but his eyes crinkled a little at the corners. We both knew what I’d been doing with my time.

“Considering that I brought you here _because_ you had a seizure, I’m not exactly surprised that we’re dealing with seizures. And nightmares, and panic attacks. Yes, the seizures have been a steep learning curve, but so was everything else in the beginning.” I sighed, “I know we’re past the point where I can pretend I don’t worry, because your genius brain will figure it out anyway. But that doesn’t mean you should feel guilty or hide shit from me. I can handle whatever you throw at me. I don’t know where you got the idea that you used to be some easy fucker, anyway. I hate to break it to you, Sunshine, but you’ve never been easy. Except for, you know…” I laughed and stuck my tongue in my cheek.

“Brian…”

“Just stop fighting me every step of the way, okay?”

Before he could say anything, I got up and headed toward my drink cart, and with my back to him I forced out, “Why did you kiss me?” Because now or never right?

I poured and drained my glass and then poured another, and when I turned around, he was watching me. I sighed and went to grab him a water bottle from the fridge, forced it into his hand, and then went back to grab my drink, tensing up more and more the longer he stayed quiet. He took a long sip and rolled his eyes (at my anxiety? my emotional stupidity? (again, his words)), and then maybe because he was so tired, I didn’t really fucking care why, he started talking.

“Because… Look, I realized basically as soon as things fell apart with Ethan that I wasn’t over you. And maybe… I never really had been. I’m pretty sure I never really fell out of love with you either, which, duh, because it wasn’t like not loving you had anything to do with why I left. But I guess I was able to convince myself for a while because I did love Ethan. And I was mad at you, and disappointed. Hurt,” he shrugged. “But it was never… what he gave me…” he huffed out a laugh and shook his head, “fuck, I hate to say you were right, but– stop smirking, okay?” he laughed. He’d clearly rehearsed this so I didn’t want to interrupt, but I swear to god, this kid. “He was infatuated with the idea of me, his muse,” another eye roll, “and it always sort of felt like work, in a way, to _stay_ his muse. And all the words, all the grand romantic gestures. I don’t know. Leaving you was the biggest fucking mistake of my life.” He shook his head, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

And I… what the fuck do you say to that?

I cleared my throat, starting to sweat while he stared at me and glad I was a drink and a half down by that point. Maybe getting liquored up wasn’t the best idea, but tough shit. I wouldn’t have been able to even have this conversation without it, so I downed the rest of my second glass and pushed off the wall to start pacing. Baby steps.

“No, you were right to leave. You were clear about what you wanted – irritatingly, dramatically, crystal fucking clear,” I rolled my eyes, “and I wasn’t giving it to you,” I shrugged, “It’s as simple as that. I figured you were young and didn’t know anything else, and that you’d eventually get over the coupley shit if I shot you down enough times, but. Eventually I figured someone was going to come along at some point who’d do all the romantic shit you were asking me for, and I wasn’t going to stop you. Because I meant it when I said it’s up to you where you want to be, and because things were just… fucking… disintegrating, here,” I gestured between us.

He looked a little sheepish, which was strange, and said, “Yeah, well. I hate to say that Michael was right, too, but…” which was even stranger, because my mind immediately went to what Mikey had said about him at the muncher’s goddam awful anniversary party. (I’d forgiven him pretty quickly, but I’ll never forget it.) But as far as I knew, Justin didn’t know why I’d punched Michael, and even if he did he sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting there saying Mikey was _right_ , so,

“About…?”

He took a sip of water and cleared his throat, blushing a little.

“Well, yeah it hurt when you mocked what I thought a relationship was supposed to be, what I thought I needed from you,” and I knew it was true, but it still hurt to hear him say it, “but you’d been showing me you loved me every day practically since we’d met. Okay!” he laughed when I opened my mouth to argue, “showing me you liked my ass, then showing me you were begrudgingly tolerating me, then showing me you sort of liked having me around, then showing me you’d fallen madly, deeply, truly in love with me, every day practically since we’d met.”

He smiled cheekily and raised his eyebrows, daring me to argue, but I knew better than to take the bait.

When it was obvious I was keeping my mouth shut, his smile softened and he continued, “But I didn’t want to see it. I thought the words and flowers and moonlit walks were what was important, but you showed me how much you cared without making a show of it. By doing shit for me, and being there when I really needed you. Just by being reliable and dependable and caring, and I know that sounds boring, and I know you’re probably on the brink of throwing me out for saying such horrible things about you,” he was literally laughing at the look on my face, “but I thought the show meant more. But it means _less_ , and I needed to have it spectacularly thrown back in my face before I could see it.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say. I was nursing my fourth drink by now and he was sitting there expectantly, and all I could do was watch him and hope he’d save me.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Brian. I never wanted that.”

I nodded, because while I doubted he’d _never_ wanted to hurt me, I knew what he meant. But I didn’t want to fucking talk about it.

“All of this isn’t to disregard the fact that we did have issues, for the record. I’m not saying things were fine the way they were and I was just being a silly romantic fag.”

“I know,” I admitted. And even though I was practically shaking from how stretched my emotional bandwidth already was, I desperately wanted to just ride the momentum and finish this conversation and then maybe, hopefully, please please please never have to talk about it again, so… “So I’ll ask again and hopefully get more than a confusing as shit kiss in answer… What do you want?”

He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, and I didn’t hate that he was a little flustered for fucking once. Taste of your own medicine, kid.

“Well, considering I just told you I’m still in love with you, and you’ve said you still care about me… fuck buddies?” he shrugged.

 _“Fuck—”_ I started, stopping in my tracks.

“I’m kidding, Brian, I’m kidding,” he laughed.

I huffed and downed the rest of my drink before making a ‘please continue’ gesture and resuming my wandering.

“Well, Daphne and I have already looked at some two-bedroom apartments, so don’t freak out. I don’t want to move back in, and I don’t want to just go back to how we were before. When—if—that happens, I want us both to want it. Not for it to just… be the least shitty option.”

“You wanted to be here,” I said, surprised.

“I did, but you didn’t want me here. Not really,” he said, and I couldn’t truthfully argue with that so I shrugged,

“Maybe not in the beginning—”

“It doesn’t matter Brian, I promise. I wasn’t trying to make a point.”

He looked sincere, and remarkably un-offended, so I took him at his word and moved on.

“I assume Daphne has better taste in living arrangements than _Ethan_ did.” 

“She definitely does,” he laughed, “romantic garrets are definitely not her style. And aside from my clingy insecurity,” he shrugged, “we were doing well before. Before my brain was bashed in, anyway—“ and jesus fucking Christ, warn a person. I flinched and headed back to the drink cart “—and afterward, I couldn’t cut through all the clutter and bullshit to see it. If we’re going to do this, or do anything, I don’t want to go back to our rules. I don’t really like the idea of even having set rules anymore, it’s just… I don’t know. But maybe some basic guidelines, for both our sake’s so we don’t end up bickering about it all the time.”

“What d’you have in mind?”

“Like, if we go out together, we can trick _there_ , but we don’t leave with a trick. And if we’re out just us, like, out to eat, you don’t go fuck the waiter.”

“So basically we don’t ditch each other.”

“Yeah, basically. Otherwise, I know what I can expect from you, and I’m okay with it.”

“You’re _okay_ with it. Well that’s a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever heard one.” Okay maybe I’d had enough alcohol for the night. Pull back, Kinney. “So you don’t… you’re not asking for _more_.”

“No, I’m not. ‘More’ wasn’t the issue, really. Just a little more consideration maybe. I don’t need monogamy, or constant romance, or fucking… declarations of devotion, any more than you want to give them to me. And it’s not like we never… not to freak you out here, but I’m aware that you weren’t out fucking and sucking every single night. You took me out to eat sometimes, or we’d stay here and get takeout and watch TV and fuck.”

“I don’t know that I ‘took you out—”

He laughed, “Well you always paid, so…”

“Fine,” I sighed, rolling my eyes and biting my lip to stop myself from grinning.

“So it wasn’t… it wasn’t like I wasn’t getting what I needed, or like I needed more than you were able to give me. But after the bashing, everything was just… There was so much going on, and I don’t think anyone noticed how much I was struggling. Don’t get me wrong, you were amazing, more than I expected but it just affected _everything_ , and _I_ didn’t even realize the extent of it at the time.”

While he was talking, I settled myself in the chair by the sofa. I was suddenly so tired, and I could feel a headache coming on.

“I felt so unsure about everything, and stuff that never would have bothered me before felt threatening. And then we had a few missteps, like my birthday, which, the year before would have been annoying but wouldn’t have felt so consequential. Do you understand what I mean? And then the snowboarding trip, which, god that was so stupid. I was _so_ angry, and hurt, and I was too selfish to realize that you were probably disappointed too. And that maybe not losing your job that supported both of us warranted rescheduling the trip. Right?” he asked, searching my eyes.

“I would have rescheduled,” I said quietly, nodding.

I leaned forward on my elbows and looked down at my hands, feeling too tipsy and too emotional to deal with whatever emotions I’d see on his face. I realized then that we hadn’t eaten, and since I’d just downed a quarter of a bottle of whiskey and he’d passed out at school, that was something we should probably get on top of pretty soon. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost 8 p.m. Shit, how long had we been talking?

“But everything felt so much more… all encompassing than it had before; every little thing that went wrong felt awful, and then a few stacked up, and then I ran into Ethan, and it was just… the perfect storm. I lost sight of all the things you were doing that before had been like a spotlight on how much you cared. Remember when I told you that you didn’t fool me? Well, sometime after the bashing, or maybe during, I don’t know, that changed. But I couldn’t even tell you because I didn’t realize it myself.”

He looked sort of sad but resigned. What was done was done, after all, and now I knew.

“Well, look. Like I said, it was good that you left, even if maybe you’re thinking it could have been avoided. We needed a reset. And I guess you needed to go off and get all wise.”

“So wise.”

“But…” fuck, how do I say this without sounding pathetic?

“But what?”

“You say you feel the same as you did before, but you also just went through a shitshow of a breakup and I know you, Sunshine. You don’t like being on your own. And as good a fuck as you are, I’m not really interested in going through all this to be your placeholder.”

_Oh, shit._

“Wow. Nice.”

 _Shit!_ “I just mean—"

“See this is what I meant; you turn into an asshole when you’re nervous. I’m not using you as a fucking bedwarmer, Brian. I love you, and I know what I want now. And that’s you, as you are. So maybe in the future when you start to freak out you could just say, ‘Hey Justin, I’m kind of freaking out, and I have no idea why but I might be a dick pretty imminently, and that’s on me, not you.’ Instead of, oh I don’t know, engineering your day so that you’re on the couch fucking a trick when I get home.”

I was staring down at my hands again, but I burst out laughing at that and blushed. It was fucking embarrassing how well he knew me sometimes. And that was it, wasn’t it? He’d lost that when he was fighting to get his life back, and I hadn’t seen it.

I trembled a little when he leaned forward and hugged me tightly, and I knew he’d felt it when he huffed a laugh and said, “We can stop talking now, I know this is killing you. Plus we should probably get some food in you now that you’ve stopped drowning your emotions in the drink cart.”

He pulled back a little and pressed his lips to mine, gently, the same way he had the other day, but before he leaned back, he licked across my lips and murmured, “Mmmm, sweet,” and grinned. The fucker was flirting with me _now_? Didn’t he understand that my emotions were all shot to hell? It was a nice distraction for half a second, though. Maybe that was why he’d done it. Fucker.

So, we let the topic drop, even though I don’t think either of us were entirely sure exactly where to go from here, or how we would actually work in practice. And I didn’t entirely trust it. I’d spent months resigning myself to the reality that maybe he was gone for good, and it was fucking painful to let myself hope again. But christ, my head was already pounding from the alcohol and the crushing weight of emotions, and I really needed some fucking food.

We ordered pizza – fuck the carbs – and sat around passing a joint back and forth – which, hand on heart, I only suggested to help his appetite – talking and joking and laughing about nothing. And I’m not just saying that because I wasn’t in any sort of state at that point to remember what the fuck came out of our mouths. Although I’m not _not_ saying that.

Anyway, eventually we got in bed, and I can’t for the life of me figure out who initiated it, but I found myself curled around him, kissing his neck, pushing my hand down his sweats to stroke the soft skin on his inner thigh.

And then we were naked, and I was lazily rocking my hips back and forth, pushing in and out of his tight heat, basking in the kind of slow, gentle, stoned sex I hadn’t had since the last time I’d done it with him.

And god, I was so glad I was stoned because I probably would have been crying like a pathetic asshole otherwise; I was so fucking overwhelmed and exhausted and drained.

When we finished, I shifted a little to roll him onto his back, and his cheeks were wet. We made eye contact and he let out an embarrassed laugh and pulled me down to kiss me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and tugging me half on top of him.

I buried my face in his neck and inhaled the heady scent of sex and sweat and _him_ , and we fell asleep like that, sticky and sweaty and so fucking happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who’s maybe been wanting even a vague chapter estimate – and I can’t make any promises since I haven’t finished writing it – we’re looking at at least 13 chapters. Nowhere near done yet.


	7. How do you think I got so wise?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look at that, the rating changed.

We were still wrapped around each other when the alarm went off in the morning, and we showered together for the first time in months, making eyes at each other while we scraped the dried cum off each other’s bodies. I got a kick out of him squawking and laughing and slapping my hand away when I dragged my fingernails through his pubes to pry the cum out, and he retaliated by pinching my side so hard my flailing almost knocked him over.

We spent the morning like that, flirting and laughing and goofing off, and it reminded me of how we’d been before the bashing, before shit got heavy. Back when he was a bratty teenager blindly believing in his invincibility, and god, I hadn’t even realized how much I’d missed that. We used to laugh all the time. I’d noticed it really early on because not many people make me truly, genuinely laugh like he does, and I wondered if that was something he appreciated about us.

I spent the day in a way fucking better mood than I’d been in for… well, a long fucking time, and when I gave the normally incompetent Brad a compliment on a surprisingly decent campaign idea, Cynthia raised an eyebrow and asked if I was having a stroke. When I just rolled my eyes, she actually furrowed her brow in concern, and I was almost tempted to ask her just how much of a miserable bastard I’d been recently. Almost.

I stayed late to work on the fucking hot sauce campaign, and Justin had a late shift at the diner, so I went right to Babylon and met the guys around 9. I danced, drank, did a tab of E, and got blown a few times, but I couldn’t stop checking my watch. Now that we’d broken the seal, I was impatient to get my hands back on Justin, and I wanted to meet him at the loft as soon as his shift was over.

I left Babylon right at midnight, happy to find that I’d timed it perfectly when I came up behind him as he was unlocking the door to the loft. I wrapped my hands around his waist, pumped from Babylon and handsy like I always am when I’m high, and he was all smiles and vibrating energy, high on just having had a fucking awesome day, and we started ripping each other’s clothes off the second I locked the door behind us.

I walked him back against the door, blocking him in, and he pulled my hair to bare my throat and attached his lips to my neck. I slid my hand down to rub a spit-slicked finger around his hole and when he started to whimper, I worked it into his ass, my other hand squeezing his straining cock while he rocked his balls against my thigh where I’d shoved it between his legs. I pressed against his prostate, stroking firmly over it when he jerked against me, and when his moans deepened, I finally started moving my hand on his cock. It took all of three firm strokes before he was gasping and spurting over my hand and his stomach. I worked his cock through the orgasm until he let his head fall back against the door with a soft thunk.

He shoved his sweaty bangs out of his face with a trembling hand while I dropped to my knees to lick and suck the cum off his stomach. When he’d calmed down a little, he pulled me up and spun us around and rimmed me and jerked me off while he rebounded, working me fast and hard until I was splattering cum across the metal door and biting back a groan. I dragged him across the room, both of us sweating and panting, and he managed to send a lamp crashing with his flailing arm when I spun him around to bend him over the back of the sofa. We both jumped at the noise, but when he looked to me for a reaction I just shrugged and pushed him down, grabbing over the back for a condom and lube packet from the stash under the middle cushion. I fucked him until his voice was hoarse and he dug his fingernails into the fabric as he came, streaking the back of the sofa with cum and sweat while I kept fucking into him mercilessly, pushing him through his oversensitivity and palming his cock until he was fully hard again.

By the time I collapsed forward onto him a while later on the chaise, officially done for the night, we’d come five times between us. I couldn’t help licking the salty sweat off the back of his neck while we both caught our breath, and I cast my eyes around the loft, surveying the trail of clothing and knocked-over (and broken, RIP, lamp) furniture we’d left in our wake with satisfaction.

Justin was limp beneath me with that happy, dazed expression that I fucking love, so I dragged him up to the bed and let him sprawl out on his back while I ducked into the bathroom to clean up a little. I dampened a washcloth to wipe him down with, and he stared up at me with a lazy grin while I cleaned off his chest and stomach and upper thighs, between his ass cheeks and around his hole. Then I flipped the washcloth over and did a cursory swipe over his splayed-out limbs, because his skin gets itchy if he doesn’t wash off the sweat and because I’m just that charitable. And because it’s annoying as hell to deal with his wriggling and whining in the middle of the night. 

I threw the washcloth in the direction of the bathroom then flopped half on top of him, completely exhausted, and pulled up the comforter. He ran his hands up my sides and snuffled into my neck while we settled in, and for the second night in a row we both fell asleep exhausted and satisfied and so fucking happy.

Which was why we were both super fucking surprised when he woke up two hours later to my panicked crying.

I don’t have a fraction of the nightmares Justin does, but every once in a while, especially when something’s going on with him… I had a slew of them right after the bashing, but they pretty much stopped when he moved in. Whether it was because I was so focused on helping him, or just because I could see him and touch him and knew he was safe, I don’t know, but they didn’t really bother me again until right before he left. I’d seen it coming of course – I’m not blind, and even if I was, a cheating Justin isn’t exactly a subtle Justin – and it was stressful as hell never knowing if I’d come home one day and he’d just be gone. And obviously, they continued for a while after he left, until I forced myself to stop worrying about the fucker living in that roach-infested garret. And it’s always, _always,_ variations on the same fucking nightmare, no matter what’s triggering it. But it had been a while, is what I’m saying, and things were so good, especially that night, jesus, so it caught us both off guard.

We were in the parking garage, and I was staring down at where he was lying unconscious in the exact position he’d collapsed in in real life. Blood was gushing from his temple, down his face, his neck, soaking into his hair, staining his collar, seeping into his shirt and pooling on the concrete, and I couldn’t fucking move. And I don’t mean in the metaphorical sense that I was frozen in shock or terror or something, I mean it was a nightmare and I literally couldn’t move my body. All I could do was watch as this creepy as fuck shadow figure slinked toward us, latched onto him, and dragged him away from me, dragged his fragile skin across the rough concrete, leaving a glistening trail of blood because he was fucking bleeding out in front of me.

When they were all the way across the garage and I was about as panicked as I thought I could get, Justin gasped and shuddered and his eyes flashed open, and I screamed, unable to go to him. I kept screaming when his eyes rolled back to white and his face went slack and he was pulled fully into the shadows. I felt like I was dying, like my body was shredding apart as my soul was torn out, and I was convinced I wouldn’t survive it. Every damn time, I was convinced I wouldn’t survive it.

I weight pressed down on me, making it harder to breathe, and then I heard his voice as if from underwater, “ _Brian!_ ”, and I looked around frantically, desperate to go to him.

“ _Brian, wake up!_ ”

‘SUNSHINE!’

A tension in my shoulders left me squirming and groaning, and I tried to shift the pressing weight as my panic ratcheted up. I still couldn’t move.

“ _Come on, Brian, open your eyes._ ”

‘WHERE ARE YOU?’

I was starting to really lose it because it felt like something was crushing me, and I couldn’t really breathe, and I _couldn’t find Justin_ , and the parking garage was starting to fade around me and NO! What if he disappeared with it? Oh god, _oh god_ —

“ _BRIAN!_ ”

I started thrashing as soon as I realized I could move, and after too many blurry, confused seconds I realized I was in my bed with a very much alive Justin lying half across my back, shaking me. I was breathing too hard and too fast, and I clenched the sheets in my fists and rubbed my sweaty face against the pillow to try to ground myself so I could pull myself all the way out of the nightmare and wake up fully. I managed to stop the panic spiral eventually, and when my body started to relax, Justin slid off my back and brushed the damp hair off my face, murmuring, “that’s it, come on, you’re all right.”.

I have no idea how long we laid there, Justin rubbing my back while I tried to even out my breathing, but when I realized the grogginess and fear wouldn’t be fully going away anytime soon I finally moved, shifting onto my side so I could wrap my arms around him and pull him against me, and I squeezed him like I couldn’t get close enough. My heart was still beating a little too fast and I was so goddamn tired, and I buried my face in his chest when I couldn’t stop myself from shaking with the effort of holding back tears. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should be embarrassed by this fucking ridiculous display, but I was still so irrationally scared and overwhelmed that I just couldn’t bring myself to give a shit.

I realized, at some point, that he was tracing light circles on my back. It was something I’d done to comfort him and help him focus after nightmares, and a fresh wave of emotion bubbled up when I realized that was what he was trying to do for me. Which made me think about how I’d almost watched this precious kid die because of me, and _that_ didn’t exactly help.

What felt like hours later, I fucking finally stopped melting down all over him – I was still shaky though, the adrenaline always takes forfuckingever to wear off – and he told me he’d rolled onto me when he was trying to wake me up, thinking the pressure might help calm me down, which I figured was the weight I’d felt at the end of the dream. I had the presence of mind now to flush with embarrassment when he told me I’d been moaning and crying and calling out for him in my sleep, and that it had taken him a scary long time to wake me up.

Super cautiously, he asked what the dream had been about, and all I could do without freaking out again was shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut, and concentrate on the feeling of his arms tightening around me. I breathed him in and let myself be comforted by the feeling of his fingers running through my hair and his lips brushing against my temple.

Assuming it was bashing-related, he murmured, “Never mind, Bri, everything’s fine. Everyone’s safe,” and I was surprised that I felt it. Safe. And cared for. I was warm and secure in his arms and completely drained, so I let myself drift, my cheek pressed against his chest.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I drifted back toward consciousness, I felt Justin’s arms still around me and he was running his fingers through my hair. I could tell it was light out before I even opened my eyes, and I really, really hoped he hadn’t been awake that whole time.

“Hey.” Christ, my voice was wrecked.

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

He loosened his arms enough to let me roll onto my back, but he kept lazily running his fingers through my hair, and I let myself stretch toward it like a cat.

“Like shit.”

He chuckled, “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

And fuck, no kidding. How many crying, thrashing nightmares had I pulled him out of by that point?

“I think that’s the worst nightmare I’ve had since right after...”

After a pause, he said, “I’d hope so. I hate to think about that happening when you’re alone. That was scary.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I said, glancing over at him briefly before looking back up at the ceiling. I wasn’t sorry for the dream, obviously, I had no fucking control over that. But I was sorry I’d scared him. I try so hard not to, and even though him being scared about something happening _to_ me was obviously different than me _doing_ something to scare him, it doesn’t really matter in the end when he’s got that fear in his eyes. I’m pretty confident that he knows I’d never lay so much as a finger on him, but I’m so much bigger than he is, and I’m a yeller by nature, and if you’d ever watched this kid flinch away from you, you’d work your ass off too to never put that look on his face again.

I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Christ, I don’t know how you do this all the time.”

“Well, it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. But… yeah, it sucks. It’s easier when you’re there, though.”

I glanced over and he shrugged, not at all embarrassed to admit it. His eyes were bright and his hair was fluffy and golden in the sunlight, and my stomach fluttered like a damn schoolgirl.

“You were right when you said you know how to do this stuff,” he continued. “You’ve always known how to take care of me, and I couldn’t figure that out at first because you don’t exactly come off as the nurturing type.” Christ, isn’t that the truth. “But you are actually, underneath your asshole façade. That’s why I called you sometimes you know, when I was with Ethan. I knew I shouldn’t have bothered you when I was the one who’d left, but. Ethan tried, but he never calmed me down like you did.”

I tried not to smile. He was confirming what I’d suspected for a while. “I didn’t mind. I would have ignored your calls if I had. I didn’t want you to not be okay, you know, and I didn’t exactly trust the starving artiste to make sure you were.” Christ, had the leftover nightmare fatigue completely robbed me of my filter? Let’s just bare our souls unnecessarily, shall we?

“He did, but that was part of the problem. He always made sure I was okay, in his way, and I guess because of that he was so fucking weird about me having to call you sometimes when it was really bad.”

Ah, I guessed this was one of those other things the fiddler was weird about. Jealous much? Jesus.

Justin wriggled down on his side and scrunched the pillow under his head, and he started talking in a low voice after stifling a yawn.

“He was frustrated that I wasn’t giving him a chance to be everything I needed, according to him. And I think that was when I started questioning things. Because, if Ethan’s version of love meant I couldn’t call the one person I needed to, when I was struggling, because he happened to be an ex-lover, or because he happened to be anyone other than Ethan… Well,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “And eventually I started looking at, you know, monogamy as an institution. Which, I realize your constant bitching probably should have made me look at it more critically before then, but I just figured you were too cynical and heterophobic and horny to give it an actual chance. And it was all I’d known, you know? And Ethan, too, he was so sure that if we loved each other enough, we’d never want – or need – anyone else. But,” he snorted, “if our parents and friend are anything to go by, monogamy doesn’t work a _lot_ of the time,” he huffed a laugh and then let out a huge yawn. “And think about it,” he forced out, still half yawning, “it’s a holdover from times when passing down property from father to son required it. The woman had to be monogamous to ensure birthright, and the man, to make sure no bastards would come out of the woodwork later on looking for an inheritance.”

My shoulders were shaking with laughter by the end of his speech, because can you believe this kid? Patriarchal birthright? But something about his explanation wasn’t sitting entirely well with me, and I was suddenly worried he was doing this for the wrong reasons. And as much as I wanted to avoid any more talk about – shudder – _our relationship_ , especially after the long-ass, draining as hell one we’d had the other day, in the spirit of improved communication, I knew I shouldn’t just ignore this and let it fester. That was the whole point, right?

“I don’t…” I started, trying to keep my expression neutral, but fuck, how do I even say this? See how good I am at the whole communication thing?

Seeing the change in my face and my hesitancy, Justin’s eyes widened and he pushed up onto his elbow, which was very much not the reaction I wanted. “Unless… are you second guessing this? Don’t freak out, Brian, I didn’t mean—”

I shook my head and said, “Shut up and let me think for a second,” and I felt his eyes on me while he sunk back down. I wanted to get this right.

“I heard you yesterday, okay? I did, and I heard you just now. But I don’t want you rushing into something you’re not really comfortable with because… you’re afraid of missing your chance. Or because you think I’ll only help you out if you’re fucking me. Because starting something back up under false pretenses won’t work. I’m still going to be tricking, a lot, and it’s not like I’ll be bringing you flowers every week or some shit, so—”

“No, stop, Brian, jesus,” he said, rolling his eyes and laughing a little. Which I couldn’t say I appreciated, but I guess it was better than him walking out. “Why do you always dial things all the way up?”

“I don’t,” I grumbled. Displaying my emotional maturity to excellent effect.

“I know what to expect from you, I told you that—”

“But—”

“No, shush,” he said, slapping his hand over my mouth. I licked his palm and he laughed and wiped it on my chest before he tilted my face toward him so I’d look him in the eye. “I want to be with you in the… capacity you’re willing and able to give me. That is what I want. I don’t give a shit what you do when you’re not with me. I never really did, you know. What got to me was feeling like I was never a priority for you. Feeling like I was always your convenient backup plan who… you’d never make an actual effort for, or ever choose first. And who you’d gladly hurt to make that point.”

I opened my mouth, but he shook his head and forged ahead.

“I know that mostly hasn’t been the case for a long time, but the feeling lingered, okay? And then I had a chance to have the kind of relationship I’d been trying to have with you. With someone who used his words, and gave me romance.” He laughed, “And whose age my mother was happier with. But _I told you_ , I’d been questioning things way before things actually started to go downhill for us. The contract he was offered… that was totally fucked. And then the cheating finally pushed me out the door, yeah, but I hadn’t been super happy for a while at that point. I kept trying to push it down and brush it off, and every time we had a good day, or he did something amazing, I was able to convince myself for a while. But the reality was that, it was just never as easy with him as it had been with you. He made me so, so happy, and feel so loved, and cared for, but after a while, the all romance all the time started to feel like habit. Like he was doing it because he was supposed to, or just because he thought I wanted it, and it just felt… ephemeral. And Vic convincing me to find a therapist I actually like didn’t hurt,” he went on. “She’s helped me a lot. We’re working on getting some insight into… or, perspective on… you know, things,” he said, making a vague hand gesture as if to encompass the world. “And now I’m telling you that this is what I _want_ – actively want, not just as something to fill a void, or as a rebound – and that _I understand what I’m asking for.”_

He was staring at me so intently, and fuck. I was definitely too tired to process all of that, so I went with the insightful, “Therapy, huh?”

“How do you think I got so wise?”

“Shut up,” I laughed. “Just… look. I hear you, all right? I just… I don’t usually _want_ to be an asshole to you, contrary to what certain people seem to think. So, yell at me, throw a hissy fit, I don’t give a shit, just… _tell_ me when I’m… hurting you. So we don’t end up back where we were last year.”

He ran a finger down my cheek and said, “Okay, don’t freak out, but, I know you get freaked out. And then you push me away to remind me where I stand.”

I opened my mouth to protest again, but he rushed to clarify.

“Or not where I stand, exactly, but of the nature of our relationship. Our… whatever we are. And to remind yourself that you’re still you. Stud of Liberty Avenue,” he smirked.

Well, fuck. He did see right through me.

“So, I’ll call you on it. You try not to freak out that I’m pushing you to become some domesticated Stepford fag, because I promise you, I’m not, and when you do freak out and turn into a raging jackass, I’ll call you on it.”

He kissed my cheek and nuzzled it a little, and I laughed and turned my head to kiss him deeply, slipping my hand down to his cock.

“Deal.”

We stayed in bed a while longer, lazily fooling around, not in any rush since it was Saturday and neither of us had anywhere to be. After while though, our residual grossness from last night’s sex and my nightmare pushed us into the shower.

I took my time washing his hair, loving whatever it is about it that feels so possessive – not that I was ready to dive too deeply into why I liked feeling that way about him – and it was especially nice since he’d grown it longer. Dripping onto his shoulders and falling in his eyes. 

As he washed my back, his hands spreading the suds across my skin, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders that I hadn’t even known was there. I’d been carrying it around for so long, I guess I’d just gotten used to it. But now… I breathed out and promised myself I’d try to do better this time.

*

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting at the table eating breakfast – eggs and toast for him, protein shake for me – when I remembered something I’d been wondering about.

“Was I listed as your emergency contact?”

“What?”

“Your nurse, Meghan, I would have just figured you’d given them my number, but she said I was listed as your emergency contact.”

“Ohhhh,” he breathed, staring at his food. “Right. Well, I was living here when I started school, and I figured they’d have to call someone about a panic attack or something at some point – which they did, if you remember.”

Of fucking course I did, but I really wished I didn’t. It was only a few days into the semester, and he’d gotten overwhelmed and overstimulated walking down a crowded hallway. This was during the time when he was still holding onto me in any kind of crowd, but given how he’d practically snarled at me the one time I’d suggested he defer a semester, I hadn’t pushed it. So I’d pretty much been holding my breath since the semester started.

Anyway, he’d ended up cowering in a doorway, just completely frozen. A professor had called the campus medical center, and the incompetent idiots who worked there hadn’t bothered to call me – _his emergency contact_ – before they’d hauled him out of there. And when they finally _had_ called, they’d actually asked me if they should call an ambulance, like they didn’t know how to handle a fucking panic attack. A competitive art school full of emotional teenagers that didn’t know how to handle a panic attack. Which they obviously didn’t, because if they did, they wouldn’t have fucking moved him in the first place in the state he was in. What people – including fucking doctors, apparently – don’t understand, is that when he’s crumpled on the ground with his arms around his head, he is _so fucking terrified_ in that moment, so fucking sure he’s about to die, that his brain can’t really process what’s going on around him, let alone what anyone is saying to him. He’s not just willfully ignoring you. And picking him up and dragging him to wherever you want to put him so he’s out of the way, so he’s not causing any trouble for anyone, especially if you’re a _fucking stranger_ , is not the way to handle it.

By the time I’d raced over there and barged into the little curtained-off cubicle they’d stuck him in, he was vomiting and hyperventilating – great way to fucking aspirate, just what we needed – and darting his eyes around the room like a caged animal. At least they’d listened to me and hadn’t sedated him before I’d gotten there, because knowing him, they would have used something he was horrifically allergic to, so, silver lining I guess. But he hadn’t seemed to recognize me right away, and I still remember how that had felt, that sinking feeling of terror thinking this was it; this was how he finally slipped through my grasp. In a fucking fluorescent-lit cubicle in the campus infirmary.

Eventually though, after threatening and glowering until everyone else had stepped out, I’d gotten him to focus on me, and as soon as he was calm enough to leave, I’d gotten him out of there. He’d cried and shivered the whole way home, and it had taken a healthy dose of Xanax, a warm shower, a _lot_ of gentle touches and soothing words, and a good long while of shivering underneath me in bed (he finds the weight and confinement comforting when he feels like he’s flying to pieces) before he’d been able to fall asleep; and only then did he finally, _finally,_ stop shaking like a goddamn leaf.

And I’d fucking torn them a new one for that, and the next time it had happened, because the poor kid can’t catch a fucking break so of course there was a next time, you better believe they’d kept their fucking hands off him and called me right away.

“And I obviously would have wanted them to call you,” he said, wrenching me out of the memory. “I just never changed it.”

“Just didn’t think to?”

He blushed but still managed to look sort of exasperated when he said, “No, I… jesus, saying it now, it feels like I was taking advantage of you. I just, was afraid to change it. I knew that you’d have every right to tell them to fuck off if they called, but… I didn’t think you would.”

Of course I wouldn’t have. And in that vein, “I feel like I’ve already said this, but just so we’re clear, you had every right to leave. We both did. I don’t know what anyone else said to you,” fucking Mikey, “but I never held that against you. The sneaking around, yeah, but not the leaving. You didn’t owe me anything. You didn’t do anything wrong when you left.”

He looked at me curiously. “Huh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's some of my thought process (that you’re more than welcome to skip): As a lot of you have pointed out already in comments, communication is key for these guys. I think a big part of what prevented them from moving past the Ethan relationship as thoroughly as they could have was that they never talked about it. When they had their conversation at Vanguard and Brian told Justin he was never to play violin music in his presence again, to me, that was Brian’s way of saying ‘we’re never discussing Ethan, don’t bring it up’. And I think that, while totally in-character for Brian, that was damaging to them moving forward because more than just discussing *them*, they needed to talk about Ethan, and about what had and hadn’t worked for Justin in that relationship. More than just, ‘oh he forced you back into the closet and then he cheated, so you left’, because in my headcanon there was so much more to it than that.  
> And between the stress and uncertainty of Justin’s health and the emotional fatigue of the ongoing nightmares and anxiety, they’re finding themselves much more vulnerable and emotionally drained and distracted here in this fic than they were ever (shown to be) on the show. And that vulnerability is making them seek the security and stability that might come from these conversations, despite the in-the-moment very real discomfort they’re (mostly Brian) feeling when forced to open up. And that, in my opinion, will change the trajectory of their relationship just enough to avoid at least some of the heartache and insecurity of later seasons.  
> Because since on the show they didn’t have these other factors making them feel quite as unsure or unsteady, they were able to shut all this down and ignore it and just push ahead, which allowed things to fester and grow until it came to a head in season 5.


	8. It makes sense that you’d be sort of… ripped open.

Justin got back to the loft around 5 on Saturday after filling in at the diner for a few hours – something about someone having a botched nose job, I don’t know – looking cheerful but a little hesitant.

“Everything go okay?” I asked, while I watched him drop all his shit on the floor just inside the door.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Kiki will be back tomorrow; I guess it was more of an overreaction to the swelling than an actual medical issue.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said wryly, not at all invested in his little workplace drama.

“So, Daph texted while I was at work, and she should be home from the airport by now,” he said nervously, which explained the hesitation I’d noticed, but not the reason behind it.

“Okay… So you’ll need to pack up,” I said. I gestured vaguely toward his stuff when he just stood there.

“You’re not… you’re okay with this?”

“It’s what we agreed to, right?”

“Uh, right,” said, looking surprised. “I’ll just pack up my stuff, then.”

We corralled most of his stuff from where it was (already!) scattered over the entire goddamn loft because he is a pig of epic proportions, packed it into his duffel bag that I swear was mostly held together by sheer force of will at this point, and headed over to her place. We left a few necessities behind – toothbrush, razor, underwear – since we knew he’d be sleeping over from time to time – or possibly much of the time, at least for now – but we were both too stubborn or cowardly or _something_ to bring up the very excellent idea of him staying at the loft a while longer. I knew were supposed to be all open with each other now, but I didn’t want to push it, especially if he wasn’t feeling the need to bring it up. And anyway, he hadn’t had a seizure in three days. Which I’d been telling myself repeatedly in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to be okay with him moving back to Daphne’s before he’d fully recovered.

I still didn’t like that he was sleeping on a fucking sofa in her living room, and who the hell knew how long it would take them to actually find a place they both liked, that they could both afford, and move into it, so on the ride over I made it clear (in an only mildly threatening and sarcastic way) that he was fully and completely welcome at the loft. Any time, for any reason, whether or not I was there, and especially if he was having trouble sleeping.

“Do you still have your key?”

He’d never given it back. And it wasn’t like I’d kicked him out; it would have been fucking petty to demand it back. What was he going to do, rob me? Plus, the fiddler lived in a fucking pigsty, and I’d wanted him to have a clean, civilized place to go if the bohemian filth hadn’t turned out to be quite as romantic as he’d imagined.

“Yeah,” he said, blushing but obviously trying furiously not to look embarrassed.

I clamped down on the laugh that wanted to come out and said, “So, anytime. I’m serious.”

It wasn’t until we were climbing up to Daphne’s fourth floor walk-up that it dawned on me that him moving back here meant he’d be going up and down a shitload of stairs. A shitload of cement stairs that he’d crack his head open on if he started seizing and fell. I was so used to having an elevator at the loft, and even when I’d brought him by here to grab some stuff last weekend, I hadn’t really thought about it because at the time, I’d been moving him _out_ of here. When he noticed me looking around at the hard, poorly lit stairs with a furrowed brow, he raised an eyebrow in question.

“Hey, do you think—”

But he immediately shook his head and cut me off. “Brian, I’ll be fine. I haven’t had a seizure in three days, and the odds that I’ll have one in the stairwell are so low.”

“Yeah, famous last words,” I muttered, “But,” I rushed on when he opened his mouth to argue, “fine. If you insist. But now that you’re moving back here, you really should tell your mo—”

“Look,” he said, grabbing and jiggling the (slippery, jiggly, metal) railing, “I’ll hold onto the railing, and I’ll carry my phone. I promise.”

He glanced back at me before I could wipe the dubious look off my face, and his face softened. “I’ll tell her eventually. I just don’t want to worry her for nothing; you know how she was after I was bashed.”

And I had to hand it to him, the kid knew how to shut down a conversation.

*

Daphne, predictably, freaked when I walked into the apartment behind Justin. She laughed and jumped on us and squeezed us into a horrific group hug, but I let her kiss me on the cheek anyway. I’m very magnanimous.

She grilled us for all the juicy details, of which we gave her few although I was sure Justin would fill her in with painfully vivid specifics later, and then I brought his stuff into her room to unpack a little (he kept some of his stuff in there because there obviously wasn’t enough room in the tiniest living room ever) and dick around while Justin told her about the seizures. I could hear them, obviously, in this postage stamp-sized apartment, but I wanted to at least give them the illusion of privacy. And also, yeah, I generally try to avoid emotionally charged conversations as a matter of course, and it wasn’t like I’d been very successful at that lately.

But of course Daphne had no intention of letting me slide, and when I heard Justin duck into the bathroom, I came out of the bedroom to find a red-eyed Daphne smiling a watery smile at me. And, nope.

“He’s fine, you know.”

“I know, he told me that.”

I nodded and looked around the room, looking for something I could fiddle with.

“He also told me how open you’ve been to… talking.”

I looked at her evenly and raised an eyebrow. If she thought I was going to give her any encouragement…

“I know he called you sometimes during panic attacks, when he was with Ethan. And he used to bring you up randomly, you know? Usually to say something snotty, but also, I could tell, just to… be able to talk about you. And it’s not like he could do that with Ethan. And I know he hates the panic attacks, but I could tell he didn’t hate having an excuse to talk to you. As much as he tried to fight it, and as angry as he sounded sometimes when he talked about you, he still wanted to stay in touch with you.”

“Pretty sure he wanted to not die of hypoxia on the PIFA quad.”

“Ugghh, come on, Brian, you know it wasn’t just that.”

I shrugged.

“If it was, he wouldn’t have spent weeks moping around my apartment pining for you, trying to figure out how to get you back.”

Well that was news.

“My point is, it makes sense that, with you being under pressure from him being sick, especially with how it’s connected to the bashing, you’ve probably got all this fear and guilt going on, right? Tell me I’m wrong. Yeah, exactly. And with all that, it makes sense that you’d be sort of… ripped open. And tired. And that like, lowers your defenses, right? So you’re more open to opening up. Which is a _good_ thing – stop looking at me like that – so you better not be thinking about having a nervous breakdown about exposing yourself to him – shut it! – and pushing him away, because if you do, I will make sure you regret it.”

“Oh I don’t doubt that for a second,” I snarked, trying not to smile.

“But listen, if you need any help or anything… please let me know, okay? You’re not the only one that cares about him.”

“Speaking of that, work on getting him to tell Jennifer, will you? He won’t listen to me and she deserves to know.”

“Plus the more people who know, the safer he’ll be?”

I shrugged again and said, “Sure, that too,” as if it was only now occurring to me.

Justin came back out then – kid either had a bowel obstruction or he’d been lingering to let Daphne flay me open – and we squished onto the couch while Daphne told us all about her (amazing, beautiful, exciting) trip while she emptied her suitcase onto the floor. Once Justin’s stomach started rumbling, I insisted we head out to take advantage of the fact that he was apparently hungry for the first time in days. We headed to the diner to meet the guys, figuring we might as well get the rest of our coming out over with.

They were all there when we arrived, and by a stroke of luck, Debbie was chatting with them when we walked in. Mikey and Ben were facing us, and when they glanced up and did a double take, Mikey’s eyes bugging out of his head, the other three turned in unison, first making eye contact with us and then looking at each other. I smirked as shock registered on all five faces, and Justin laughed, the sound ringing out across the diner, and after a few frozen seconds Debbie shrieked, breaking the tension.

So, we endured _that_ freak out. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it probably went exactly how you’re imagining. Crushing hugs and shrieking joy from Debbie; smug delight from Emmett; a positive, if slightly jealous reaction from Theodore – I suspect he’s always had a bit of a thing for our Sunshine but is duly disgusted with himself for it; Ben’s trademark quiet happiness and a genuine, “Congratulations, guys”; and skepticism barely disguised by fake enthusiasm from Mikey.

I knew Michael was happy that I was happy, but he still completely blamed Justin for leaving, still refused to acknowledge that Justin had been completely free to do so or that I may have, on occasion, treated Justin like shit. He thought Justin should be forever in my debt because I’d saved his life – nevermind that I’d almost cost him it. As if I wanted the kid to stick around just because he had a hero complex. I also knew Mikey was worried I’d get hurt again. But his blind loyalty, which admittedly I’d enjoyed and used to my advantage in the past, had caused issues for Justin since day one, and it was something I was going to have to deal with at some point. But tonight we had enough on our plates.

Justin and I squeezed into the booth, and during a raucous dinner, our ever-charming friends took turns making jokes at my expense about how miserable I’d been without Sunshine in my life, and Sunshine, why oh why would you hook back up with a grouchy old philanderer like our dear Brian? Justin squeezed my thigh under the table whenever they landed particularly sharp jabs, probably because he could feel me tensing up beside him. I appreciated it more than he knew, and I was glad he was smart enough to offer me whatever silent comfort he could rather than telling them off, because lord knows that would have just been fodder for the peanut gallery.

We had decided ahead of time not to tell them what had prompted our reconciliation. Obviously, I’d like to think he would have come crawling back soon regardless, and Daphne’s reveal that he’d been pining for me backed that up, but there was no denying that we were together _tonight_ because of the seizures. But as wrong as he was to not tell Jennifer (rich, I know, coming from someone who wouldn’t tell his own mother if he were on his deathbed; but Jennifer is very much not Joan), he didn’t need the hassle of all of Liberty Avenue knowing, especially given Debbie’s lifelong commitment to histrionics. But of course any prior agreements we had made didn’t stop them from asking.

While I sipped a coffee and Justin inhaled an extra large helping of chocolate cream pie, Emmett swirled the ice in his glass and drawled, “So what brought on this reconciliation, boys?”

They knew enough to accept a vague grumble from me, so they all stared at Justin while he licked some whipped cream off his lips and knocked his knee into mine. He shrugged and said casually, “I realized I’d made a mistake.”

When it became clear that was all he intended to say, Emmett said, “Well that’s sweet, but that can’t be the whole story; we know Brian has his pride. He just… took you back?”

Justin raised a pointed eyebrow and said, “I have my uses.”

I knew he wasn’t in the mood to indulge them after they’d spent most of the last thirty minutes picking on me. Luckily, they were apparently able to pool their combined brain cells effectively enough to figure that out, because they let it drop at the annoyed look on Justin’s face. We were pretty much done at that point anyway, so we paid and got ready to head out, and we’d almost made it out the door when Debbie came rushing over and tried to wrangle us into coming to family dinner the next night.

I’d been attending intermittently like I always had, but Justin hadn’t been once since the Rage party despite Debbie’s repeated invitations. No one was surprised, given the circumstances, and at the time I’d been relieved that he’d never shown up; but he’s always loved Debbie, and he usually loves choking down heaping portions of her huge meals, so I was surprised when he hesitated at her invitation. But I didn’t need to know the reason behind his hesitation to push her off for a week, promising – against my better judgement, but it was the best I could do with her practically yelling at us in the middle of the diner – that we’d be there next Sunday instead.

“You two had better be there! Don’t you dare keep that boy away from us now that you’ve finally gotten him back!”

“Yes, mother, I promise,” I said, as smarmy as I could be.

Once we’d escaped, we all headed to Babylon. The music was loud, the drinks were strong, and Justin was all over me, hot and sweaty, his lips and hands hardly leaving my body, and I realized then that I didn’t give a shit what those gossipy queens were saying about us. I hardly even noticed the appreciative looks we were getting, too focused on the blinding ray of sun grinding against me.

After a while, but not nearly long enough, Justin slowed down and then sagged in my arms, leaning his forehead against my chest. He was trying to catch his breath, and I cursed myself – and him – when I remembered that he wasn’t supposed to drink on the stronger anticonvulsant, and he’d had… three?

“You okay, Sunshine?” I shouted over the music, dragging him over to a sofa.

He slumped against me when we sat down and tilted his lips up to my ear. “Just kind of dizzy. I’m fine, it’s just the medicine.”

He was slurring a little and his breath was hot on my ear, and his hair was curling a little where it was damp with sweat on the back of his neck. I swallowed and nodded. “Let’s go home.”

“Okay,” he agreed, smiling and looking a little relieved.

I took him back to the loft, peeled him out of his clothes, and fucked him gently, tasting whiskey and chocolate and sweat when I licked into his mouth. As he drifted off sprawled across me a little while later, it occurred to me that he hadn’t questioned where I meant when I’d said ‘home’.

I woke up a few hours later to his arm seizing on my chest. It was hardly anything compared to the seizures he’d had earlier in the week and he slept right through it, his breathing deep and even, his skin soft and warm against mine. I traced my fingers up and down his arm until it stopped shaking, and then I wrapped my arms around him and held him to me. I fell back asleep with his reassuring weight on top of me, and I was so, so grateful that he’d come back.

*

We spent the next week figuring out how our new arrangement was going to work. I tried to make it clear that he was welcome at loft whenever; that I _wanted_ him to be there whenever and as much as he wanted to be, but I could tell he wasn’t totally sure of his place. It was weird for him; he used to live there, but he didn’t now.

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m overstepping,” he said on Tuesday, holding the box of sugary granola bars he’d just asked if he could leave in the cupboard.

I shot him an incredulous look and said, “Of course you can leave food here. And when the fuck have you ever worried about overstepping before?”

His response was an indignant “Hey, I’m considerate!” but his smile when he said it took the fire out of it.

And that was how the week went, Justin afraid he was stepping on my toes while I rolled my eyes and snarked at him. We fucked a lot, and talked a lot, and generally spent most of our free time together. We’d laugh at the guys’ dirty jokes and then go back to the loft to do way dirtier shit to each other than they could have possibly imagined.

I can’t even express what a relief it was to be able to text him random shit again, and email him dirty jokes during boring meetings. It only took Cynthia until Tuesday morning to figure out what was going on. Needless to say, she was thrilled. She’d always loved Justin.

It was a fucking magnificent week, and we spent the following weekend mostly in bed (metaphorically, of course, we fucked all over the loft). During our brief breaks to rest and recharge we usually split a joint and ordered in food, and occasionally showered to avoid being crusted in more than three layers of cum at a time.

Justin spent most of his time parading around naked, wrapped in the blue blanket and flushed from sex, his hair fluffy and messy and falling in his eyes, and I found myself wondering how Ethan had felt losing him. How he felt now, more than a month later. Whether he’d really loved him. It didn’t really matter, didn’t change anything, but I did wonder.

A pit formed in my gut a few times when the thought of losing Justin again crossed my mind, as it had been doing randomly since he’d come back, but I’d become very adept over the years at squashing unpleasant emotions and I was able to ignore the dread pretty effectively. But I can’t be blamed for a particularly strong wave of fear that hit me on Saturday afternoon, when he fainted.

That was our one hiccup all week. We’d been warned that a common side effect of the stronger anticonvulsant was dizziness and lightheadedness, but he’d been feeling pretty normal all week, and the PIFA doctor had assured us that his fainting the week before had been due to dehydration and lack of sleep – and that may very well have been true – so we’d figured he’d been spared that particular side effect. No such luck.

So like I said, we’d pretty much been fucking non-stop since the night before by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, and after a particularly strong round of orgasms, I suggested another shower to wash off the dried sweat and cum. We were _very_ sticky, and while sometimes I’m into the filthiness, I was less enthusiastic when I’d just ripped out some of my pubes pulling out of Justin. It would be nice to start fresh. Plus, he was looking a little tired and pale, and even though he claimed he felt okay when I asked, I figured it was a good time to take a break. Maybe have something to eat, rest a little.

I set the water fairly hot to soothe our muscles, and the steam helped clear some of the sex fog my brain was swimming in.

His hands felt amazing swirling the soap over my skin, first applying just enough pressure to actually clean me, then whispering his hands over my body, lightly dragging his nails up my sides to send chills up my spine. I swear, no one else has ever made me feel that good without touching my cock. I returned the favor, feeling his muscles loosen up as I glided my hands over his skin, massaging him a little as I went. He leaned his weight more heavily on me while I washed his hair, but I didn’t think much of it because… well, it wasn’t like I was making any effort to keep my hands off him, either.

He was dragging a little while we dried off and threw on sweats, so I headed down to the kitchen to grab the takeout menus, thinking he just needed some food. The boy’s a bottomless pit. But he called my name just as I reached the kitchen and he sounded sort of strangled and anxious, and I whirled around to find him sitting on the bottom step from the bedroom with his head in his hands. He was staring at the floor and breathing kind of shallowly, so I hurried over and dropped to one knee beside him, and squeezed his shoulder gently.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Why hadn’t I noticed how sick he was?

He pulled in a ragged breath but didn’t respond, so I shook his shoulder and said, “Hey,” again, and he groaned and sort of pitched forward, crumpling against me when I caught him around his chest.

“Shit!”

I pulled him the rest of the way off the step and laid him gently on his back on the floor, cradling his head in my lap. He was frighteningly pale – even for him – and his lips were this chalky whitish color. He was totally limp, and his eyes were _mostly_ closed but open just enough for me to see a tiny sliver of white and blue, which was creepier than I expected. He was breathing in these short, gasping breaths and his skin was clammy even though we’d just gotten out of a hot shower, and I didn’t know how worried I should be about that. I brushed his damp hair off his forehead and left my hand resting there while I rubbed his chest firmly, shaking him a little.

“Justin. Justin, come on, wake up. Come on, Sunshine, you’re okay.”

Nothing at all happened, and that wave of losing-Justin fear washed over me, settling into the horrible empty pit in my stomach. But right when I was maybe starting to panic a teensy bit – the fact that I was practically shouting his name in his face a possible indication – he took a deep breath and blinked his eyes open, shuddering a little as he woke up. I rubbed his chest a little to ground him, gentler than I had been before, and I gave him a minute to get his bearings. He scrunched his face up in confusion before his eyes found mine, and when they did, he groaned and started to sit up, rolling his body off my legs and pushing himself onto his butt. I kept a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Hey. Are you okay? You fainted.”

“I know, I… that was really weird. I felt really dizzy, so I sat down, and then… I don’t know. I could hear you calling to me, but I couldn’t…” he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Okay? Tired, I guess. Kind of spacey. It’s probably just the medicine though.”

“Yeah. Probably. And the hot shower wouldn’t have helped. Were you feeling dizzy before?”

“Don’t be pissed,” he said, rubbing his forehead. Always an excellent start. “It’s been on and off for maybe an hour.”

I closed my eyes and let out a breath, forcing myself to speak calmly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I—”

“Justin, you have to tell me this shit.”

“I know, I just—”

“You can’t be reckless!”

“Stop!” He shouted, and okay, why was _he_ pissed? “I’m embarrassed, okay? I’m so sick of being the delicate little flower, of needing a fucking babysitter!”

He was starting to breath harder, and I watched his expression shift from angry to scared when he _realized_ he was breathing harder, so I stopped fucking yelling at the kid and pulled him to me, tucking his forehead against my neck and holding him tight while he calmed down. After a minute, he sniffed and pulled back, and he had some color back in his cheeks. Good. 

He sighed and said, “I’m sorry,” which, no, “I… thank you. I didn’t hit my head, did I?” he asked, bringing his hand up to his head.

“No, I caught you.” Wouldn’t have needed to if he’d fucking lain down when he’d started feeling dizzy, but that would have been useless to point out.

He nodded but didn’t say any more, so I took a shot at reassuring him, even though I had no fucking idea what the right thing to say was.

“You know I don’t see you that way, right? Like a ‘delicate little flower’?”

“I swear to god, Brian, if you’re about to tell me how strong I—”

“Calm down, I know you hate that shit. I was _going_ to say, you’re sick right now, and you need some extra help, and that has less than nothing to do with the fact that I have never once thought of you as delicate. You’re going to get better—”

“But what if—”

“But even if you don’t, or if something else happens, we’ll adjust,” I said with a shrug. “What choice do we have? If we’ve been able to adjust to each other, we can sure as hell adjust to whatever health stuff is thrown at us. Right?”

“Yeah, right,” he muttered.

I didn’t love his lack of conviction, but I’d take it for now. I pulled him up and deposited him on the sofa, then I ordered food and we watched some TV while we ate and relaxed. Eventually, I hauled him to bed, and I curled around him to take a nap.

He apparently needed less rest than I did, because after an hour, he woke me up by squeezing my cock. There was a mischievous glint in his eye that my half-hard cock took an immediate interest in, and he did look a lot better, but I was still a little gun-shy about being too rough with him. I reluctantly let him take the reins, but despite his insistence that he was fine, I couldn’t help slowing him down or easing him off me every time he really got going. I wasn’t trying to not have sex with him, I just… I mean, the kid was having seizures and fainting; I didn’t want to hurt him.

I could tell I was frustrating him though, and after ten minutes of that he lost his patience. He straddled me and pinned me down, looming over me and glaring, and I practically saw the lightbulb go off right before he smirked and started tickling me. He didn’t let up, even when he’d reduced me to a writhing, screaming mess, so with the last dregs of my strength, I threw him off me and flipped him onto his stomach. I didn’t even stop to catch my breath before I was fucking him into the mattress, panting and grinning while he laughed and moaned loudly enough to bring down the building. Just like he’d intended, the manipulative fucker.

But god, he has such a magical laugh. So, inspired, I waited until he was mid-orgasm and then I tickled down his side, just to see what would happen, and I was rewarded with the most magnificent, fucking _loud_ burst of completely unfiltered laughter I’d ever heard. I wasn’t stupid, I knew he’d try to retaliate at some point; but it was completely worth it to hear that sound of sheer, unadulterated pleasure coming out of him.

*

Late Sunday afternoon, I rolled off Justin after my fifth or sixth orgasm of the day, both of us sweaty and sticky and just all around pretty filthy. My eyes flicked over the alarm clock on my nightstand as I settled onto my back, and Justin glanced up at me in mild alarm when I shot upright.

“Fuck! Family dinner!”


	9. You look happy, Brian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, bit of a long one. <3

So, we curtailed our weekend fuckfest to shower off the layers of cum, sweat, lube, and saliva – Justin had a particularly stubborn chunk of cum crusted into his bangs that took some effort to wash out – and then we reluctantly got dressed for the first time in, oh, about 40 hours. Much as we would have preferred to stay naked and stuck together, it seemed gratuitous to give the gang a free show at Debbie’s dinner.

I hadn’t really thought about it during the week, but my curiosity over why Justin hadn’t wanted to go last Sunday resurfaced while I was doing my hair. “Hey Sunshine,” I called into the bedroom, where he was getting dressed. “Not that I’m complaining, but why didn’t you want to go last week?”

He came and stood in the bathroom doorway, pulling on his pants – sigh – and shrugged. “I didn’t want to have a seizure in front of everyone; I was still feeling nauseous off and on and I knew Debbie would notice if I didn’t eat as much as I usually do; and we’d,” he said, gesturing between us, “already been the center of attention on Saturday, and I knew they’d be fawning all over us if we went, and I didn’t want you freaking out if you had to deal with their shit two nights in a row.”

“Ah. So you’ve thought about this.”

He rolled his eyes and went back over to the dresser. “I know how you are, Brian. And you know how _they_ are. Just ignore them if they start tonight, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled.

And off we went.

Fifteen minutes later, I was hovering behind Justin on Debbie’s porch. He stopped with his finger halfway to the doorbell, and then quietly, as if he thought the gang was hovering on the other side of the door, he said, “I know you wouldn’t, but don’t say anything, okay? About the seizures. I know you’re nervous that I haven’t told everyone yet, but I want to tell my mom first. She shouldn’t have to hear it from Debbie.”

“Well if you’d already—”

“I know,” he cut me off, ringing the doorbell to shut me up.

And maybe they _had_ been hovering just on the other side, because the chimes had barely started when Debbie threw open the door and cried, “Sunshine! What are you doing ringing the bell, you used to live here!”, and wrenched Justin inside.

“You too asshole, come on in,” she snarked, looking at me over Justin’s shoulder. Justin, who was currently being crushing against Debbie’s chest with mildly alarming strength.

“Come on Deb, let the lad breathe,” I replied with a smarmy smile, grabbing Justin’s shoulders and tugging him backward. “If he’s going to asphyxiate, I’d rather it be on my cock.”

She laughed and said, “I bet you would!” but she let him go, and when he stepped around her to say hello to everyone else, she turned to me and said, surprisingly quietly, “You look happy, Brian,” being discreet for maybe the third time in her life. “Good work, kiddo.”

“Wasn’t me, Deb. But thanks,” I said sincerely, kissing her on the cheek.

Everyone else was already there, and when Gus managed to tear his eyes away from the truck he was struggling to drag through the shag carpeting, his eyes fixed on Justin first and his little face lit up. He shrieked, “Jus!!” and ran headlong into Justin’s legs, wrapping his little arms around them and clinging like his life depended on it.

So, exactly how I would have reacted if I were two years old and not cripplingly emotionally repressed.

“Gus-man!” Justin exclaimed, picking Gus up and swinging him around before plopping my screeching son on his hip. Really putting my repressed emotions through the ringer, these two.

“Excuse me,” I said, tapping my son on the shoulder. “Do I get a hello?”

“Daddy!” Gus squealed, making grabby hands at me until I squeezed him in a hug, then I set him down and he grabbed Justin’s hand and tugged on it, saying “Jus, come. Draw!” in his adorable piping voice. And since, and I may be biased here, but not even the coldest-hearted monster could say no to that face, _Jus_ went and settled down with Gus at the coffee table.

Everyone else said their hellos, and there were waves and hugs and kisses all around. It was just the main gang tonight – Mikey, Ben, Emmett, Ted, Lindsay, Mel, Gus, and Debbie – and I wouldn’t have put it past Debbie if that was intentional, for Justin’s first time back. Regardless, I was grateful that no more people than necessary were involved in this evening in which a massive fucking spotlight was clearly shining on me and Justin, if the constant glances and whispers were anything to go by.

They got my hopes up before dinner though, when everyone, surprisingly, pretty much stuck to standard Liberty Avenue gossip and small talk, but I should have known they were lulling us into a false sense of complacency. As soon as we sat down at the table, they started peppering us with rapid-fire questions, talking over one another to pry into our personal lives with abandon, the vipers.

“So how _exactly_ did you two get back together—”

“Who approached who—”

“ _Whom_ —”

“Who made the first move—”

“What was your first time back together like—”

Justin and I sat there placidly, serving ourselves and eating our food with our knees pressed together.

“Justin, where are you living—”

“Ooh are you cohabitating again—”

“Didn’t exactly go well last time—”

“Or the time before that—"

“What exactly are you guys doing—”

“Yeah, what is this?—”

“Justin you’re still in school, right—"

“Can we call you a couple—”

“Couple of _what_ I don’t know—”

But it started to get old pretty quickly and they weren’t showing any signs of slowing, so I finally squeezed Justin’s thigh under the table in warning and shouted “ENOUGH,” slamming my hand down on the table to make sure I had everyone’s attention. I felt bad when Gus looked up at me from his booster seat with big, round eyes, so I gave him a smile and a wink and was relieved when he smiled back and returned to happily making a mess of his food.

“I don’t know why anyone here thinks they have the right—"

“What Brian’s trying to say,” Justin took over, flashing me an exasperated smile; which, fair enough, I’d sounded angrier than even I’d expected, “is if you’d let us get a word in edgewise, we’ll answer some of your questions. I’m living with my friend Daphne, and no, I don’t have any plans to change that. In fact, we’re looking for a bigger apartment at the moment. Yes, I’m still in school, and I don’t have any plans to change that, either. Brian and I are together, have been for a couple of weeks now depending on how you measure it. We’re still figuring everything out, but we clearly haven’t killed each other yet.”

“And the rest is none of your goddamn business,” I added, when it was clear that was all he was going to say.

“Yeah, that too,” Justin smirked, picking his fork back up to continue shoveling Debbie’s lasagna into his mouth. He might have come off a bit more authoritative if he hadn’t had marinara sauce on his mouth during his little speech, but hey, what can you do.

“We’re happy for you guys, really,” Lindsay said.

“Yeah, sweetie, we just want you to be happy,” Emmett added.

“Of course we fucking do. Now don’t fuck it up again, all right?” Debbie said, “Now who wants dessert?”

They reverted back to trashy gossip after that, and I was able to relax and sip my coffee while I watched in amusement as Justin wolfed down a frankly ridiculous portion of Debbie’s tiramisu cake.

I steadfastly ignored the looks I knew we were getting – Emmett’s ‘sappy’ face is pretty hard to mistake for anything else – and I sat my sleepy son on my lap for the rest of dessert to distract everyone with his cute yawns. Justin gave me a knowing look the second time I drew everyone’s attention to Gus rubbing his eyes with his miniscule fists, and he bumped his knee against mine and whispered, “Want to get out of here? I may have the metabolism of a teenager, but I should probably burn off some of these calories…”

We said our goodbyes pretty quickly after that, racing back to the loft to close out our weekend fuckfest strong, freshly fortified and raring to go.

*

Justin went by himself to his MRI appointment on Monday, which was fine with me since it’s just lying in a tube for 45 minutes, but I was relieved when he asked me to go with him to the follow-up on Tuesday. I’d already taken the morning off, and he saved me from having to offer to go with him and then having to deal with another queenout about how he can take care of himself. Seriously, the kid’s exhausting.

I’d met Dr. Cassidy the year before, when I’d brought Justin to some of his appointments to help out Jennifer. She’d seemed to know what she was talking about, and Justin liked her, but for obvious reasons I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be back in her office.

It was obvious she remembered me when we walked in – “Mr. Kinney! You look well.” – which wasn’t a surprise since for some godforsaken reason, Justin had told her our whole sordid saga when they’d first met. It’s not exactly an easy story to forget, especially when you’re hearing it from your sweet, blonde, teenaged, traumatized, brain damaged patient.

We sat down in her office, and she gave us the good news first. His MRI was normal, the contusion was almost completely healed, and he shouldn’t have any lasting effects from it. And, since he’d only had a few minor seizures over the last week – his arm a couple of times and his leg once, but no more of those scary half-body ones he’d been having – she was going to drop him back down to his regular, lower dosage anticonvulsant starting tomorrow morning.

“So that’s all good news. But I need to warn you—”

Here we go.

“—that it’s relatively common to experience a major seizure when you’re adjusting to a lower dose. It doesn’t mean the dose is too low, and it doesn’t mean it will keep happening; your body just needs to adjust. I don’t believe you’ve had a tonic-clonic seizure before now, correct? But you still could.”

“When… How would…?” Justin started, his face paling. I reached out to take his hand and threaded my fingers through his, giving him a little steadying squeeze.

“Well, keep in mind you may not have one, but if you do, it could happen as early as tomorrow, or any time over the next few days. Statistically, if you don’t have one after four days, you’re unlikely to.”

“Is there any way of knowing how bad the seizures will be?” I asked, “Over the next four days?”

“Unfortunately no, but again, statistically, it’s extremely unlikely that you would have more than one tonic-clonic, Justin. You could also have any number of smaller ones, like the kind you’ve already been having, or none at all. When we lower people from temporarily higher dosages back down, nearly half of people won’t have a seizure, but about half do. Having multiple small ones wouldn’t be unusual, but only a very small minority have multiple larger ones.”

“So… it’s more likely than not that he’ll have one. At least a small one.”

“Yes.”

“And very possibly a major one.”

“Very possibly, but like I said, it’s certainly not guaranteed. I don’t want you to be surprised if it does happen though, so let me tell you what to watch for, so you’re as prepared as you can be.”

She didn’t exactly start strong, ensuring us that “you don’t need to stay glued to each other” over the next few days, as if that was in any way reassuring, and then pointing out that “anxiety would be very understandable though.” Um, no shit, Sherlock.

We already knew some of the signs to watch for from our own research, so it wasn’t news that if he noticed a metallic taste in his mouth or a ringing or buzzing in his head, he needed to lie the fuck down. Or that if he found he was having difficulty following a conversation, or that his eyes weren’t focusing, or that he was spacing out, or acting slow, or just generally not acting like himself, he needed to lie the fuck down. But basically he just needed to lie the fuck down if he was ‘feeling strange’, because there was a good chance his pre-seizure brain wouldn’t have any idea what the fuck was going on, so it would be up to me to watch out for actual signs.

“We really want to avoid you getting any more head trauma Justin, so if you feel strange at all, or Brian, if you notice that anything seems off, Justin, you’ll want to lie down on your side immediately.” Cool, head trauma scare tactics. Love that.

I was pretty sure he hadn’t fully lost consciousness during any of the seizures he’d had by that point, but he might during a larger one, hence the lying down.

“Brian, if he does lose consciousness, make sure he’s on his side and physically safe, and if he’s somewhere you can take your hands off him, like on a bed, go ahead and do that. At the very least, Justin, you’ll want something soft under your head. A mattress or pillow would be ideal, but even a leg, or a hand would work; just something to protect it from banging if you’re on a hard surface.”

I was seriously regretting not bringing a fucking notepad with me.

“If you do have a tonic-clonic, it will likely last for a few minutes, and like I said, Justin, you’d be unconscious, so you wouldn’t remember it. You also likely wouldn’t breathe during it—“

“For several minutes.”

“Yes, for however long the seizure lasts. I know that sounds scary,” – _YOU THINK?!_ – “but it’s just how the body responds during this type of seizure, and there are rarely adverse effects from it. You’ll start breathing again and likely wake up as soon as the seizure stops. So, Brian, don’t panic if his lips turn blue or if he sounds like he’s choking. I promise you, he’s not.”

Oh sure, don’t panic. No problem. Easy breezy. I think I managed to nod at least, but my heart was racing and my mouth felt like the fucking Sahara. A little late for _don’t panic_.

“Do either of you have any questions? I know it’s a lot.”

We both shook our heads, too busy trying to process everything we’d heard to formulate any kind of coherent response. At least, that was my reason, but judging by Justin’s clammy hand trembling in mine, his reason, too. I squeezed his hand tighter.

“If you lose consciousness during any type of seizure, you’ll likely be disoriented and tired, afterward, and kind of miserable, to put it bluntly.”

We already knew how rough larger seizures were on him, on his brain and his body, so it wasn’t exactly comforting, but at least it wasn’t surprising to hear that he probably wouldn’t really be himself after.

“It’s common to feel sort of out of it and confused, to not know what’s going on or where you are, or even who the people around you are. It’s normal to react emotionally, and anything from sadness to confused violence isn’t uncommon.”

Justin cleared his throat and I jumped a little, having sort of sunk into my own world. “Violence?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“It’s not uncommon for the confusion and pain to manifest in violence, and lashing out at those who are trying to help is common. It’s not a guarantee, again, unfortunately nothing is particularly black and white here—”

Shocking.

“—but it’s not uncommon, so it’s something Brian should be prepared for. It’s all extremely temporary, but it can be very scary if you’ve never seen it before. Now, with a particularly bad seizure, the fatigue, soreness, and even confusion can last for several days, but I would be very surprised if you had one that severe.”

“Would I piss myself?” Justin asked, and oh god, his voice trembled.

“It is possible, as with any seizure. Has that happened?”

“I don’t—”

“Yes.”

Justin snapped his mouth shut and glanced sideways at me, but I kept my eyes on the doc.

“Well, as you know, medically speaking, there’s nothing to worry about if that happens.”

Justin forced a small nod.

“If you do have a seizure over the next few days, give me a call afterward.”

Luckily, if you can call if that, she assured us that I’d only need to bring him to the hospital – “or call 911, of course, depending on the situation” – if he injured himself during the seizure, wasn’t breathing well afterward, or had a cluster. And fucking Christ, I hadn’t even thought of that.

So, with visions of seizures dancing in our heads, we left with the doc’s assurance that we could call her if we thought of any questions. We didn’t have any then, and I didn’t know if that was because she’d been so painfully fucking thorough, or because my brain felt like it was… you know when a TV is just static? Like that. Information overload and sheer terror really do a number on cognitive function, and my head was pounding from the fucking worry and apprehension of it all. I really needed to just get one of those giant rolls of bubble wrap and wrap him up in it, lock him in the loft, and throw away the key.

We were silent on the way down to the car, and assumed Justin’s brain was as static-y as mine, but I needed to know how he was doing with all of this. He hadn’t said a single word since asking if he’d piss himself; not even ‘thank you’ or ‘goodbye’, and I was pretty sure he’d be upset about that later given his generally annoying WASPy etiquette.

As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, I rested my hand on his where he was squeezing his own thigh, and I rubbed my thumb over his knuckles. “What are you thinking?”

“Listen,” he said, surprisingly clear and abrupt. Uh oh. “I’m not going to tell you that I don’t hold you to what we talked about before, or that I know none of this is what you had in mind, or that given the choice, you definitely wouldn’t want to be dealing with all of this.” His voice was a little shaky by the end though, which pretty effectively nullified the determined look on his face.

“So you’re _not_ telling me I’m allowed to walk away? That I _shouldn’t_ just push you out right here and make you catch a bus to Daphne’s?” Hey, the same old reassurances obviously weren’t working; might as well try a different tactic.

He cut his eyes to me and hesitated. “Well. Of course you’re allowed to—"

“Because you might have one bad seizure?”

“I just know this is a lot, okay?”

“So once again, you’re giving me permission to bail – permission I don’t fucking need by the way, because if I didn’t want to be here I wouldn’t fucking be here – because you’re sick – _because of me_ , in case you’ve forgotten – and you _might_ have a bad seizure or two while you adjust to your meds.”’

“I… well…”

“That’s really the narrative you want to go with?” I hated that I was pissed when he was just sitting there being excruciatingly insecure, but whatever; anger was easier to deal with than fear and sadness, so I went with it.

“Okay, I get it, I just—”

“Then don’t fucking insult me, Justin.”

“This isn’t about your fucking pride, Brian. I don’t want you to stay because you feel bad for me.”

“Christ, why is this so goddamn hard for you to understand? It’s not conditional. I’m here with or without the fucking seizures. When are you going to get that through your head?”

I knew why he was struggling with it, I’m not an idiot. I’d pushed him away for months, run away from him, pushed him into someone else’s arms, and now I expected him to feel secure in my commitment? When things were rougher than they had been for a really long time? I got where he was coming from. But hadn’t I been painfully fucking clear where I stood since this all started?

“I just don’t want you to feel trapped when we’ve only just gotten back together.”

“Stop being an idiot, okay? It’s exhausting, Sunshine. I don’t care if you’re having fucking… sleepwalking, loft-destroying nightmares, or scary as shit seizures that turn you into a raging asshole. Do you think I can’t handle this? Is that the problem?”

He scratched a fingernail against his jeans and picked at a thread. “No, I know you can. You just shouldn’t have to.”

“And neither should you, yet here we are.”

He let out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh and said, “You’ll tell me if that changes, though. If you hit your limit.”

“Of course, Sunshine. I cheerfully reserve the right to kick you out of my life.”

He leaned his head back against the headrest and stared out the windshield.

“If I did though, it wouldn’t be because of this. I don’t want you to worry about that.”

“It might get to be too much.”

I parked and we continued our ridiculous conversation while we headed into the pharmacy, lowering our voices slightly once we were inside.

“I really, really doubt that. Look, you and I both obviously have a thing about being taken care of, or being a burden, or whatever the hang-up is. But I… fuck, Sunshine, I fucking hate that you’re making me say this, but, I don’t hate taking care of you, okay? I wish you’d just accept it and not force a whole fucking conversation about it. And before you argue, it doesn’t have anyfuckingthing to do with you not being capable as shit, because I know you are.”

He was quiet, thinking, while he veered off to grab some Gatorade, but he started up again as soon as he joined me in the pharmacy line.

“But you _will_ tell me if you feel overwhelmed. Even if it’s not an ‘I need a break’ overwhelmed. I know it’s a lot.”

“It’s a lot for you too, Justin, and you don’t have the option of vacating your body.”

“Please, Brian, just promise me you’ll talk to me if you start to feel overwhelmed. Or resentful. That you won’t just try to shove it down until it comes bubbling up in you finding small ways to hurt me while you insist nothing’s wrong.”

Oh for the love of… I felt his eyes on me, so I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was giving me this shit-eating grin with his head cocked to the side, and I felt my lips curl up into a small smile of their own accord. This fucking kid. Remind me why I keep him around again?

He paid for his meds and the Gatorade, and we got back in the car.

“Fine, I promise. But this goes both ways, remember.”

“Yes, Brian,” he sighed, clearly exasperated, as if the little shit had the right. “Next time you get pissy, I promise I’ll tell you to stop being a fucking drama queen and just talk to me.”

I laughed and leaned over to kiss him on the soft spot beside his mouth, muttering “asshole” under my breath and getting a huff of laughter out of him.

When we got back to the loft, I gave in to the residual clinginess I’d been feeling since we left the doctor’s office, and I hugged him to me the whole way up in the elevator, resting my chin on his head.

He threw together a salad for lunch while I changed into a suit for work, and I dropped him off for his afternoon class on my way to the office. Apparently the clinginess hadn’t faded, because I had an embarrassingly hard time leaving him at school, and I got out of the car with him to say goodbye. I took his face in my hands and ran my thumbs across his cheekbones, pressing my lips to his, and he squeezed my waist gently before he pulled back and grabbed my lapels.

“I’ll see you later?”

“I’ll pick you up after work.” Thank god he didn’t have a shift tonight.

He nodded and leaned up to give me a peck on the lips before he turned and headed into the building, and I stood there with my arms crossed, watching him go.

Cringingly embarrassing.

*

I left work around 6, and I spent the drive back to campus wondering if he had assumed, like I had, that he would be staying with me for the next few days. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Yes, Daphne was home now, and I knew she was more than capable, but… you know my superiority complex about how, _obviously_ , no one can take care of Justin as well as I can? And anyway, I was the one who’d been dealing with the seizures and the panic attacks and the fainting, and the one who’d held his hand through Dr. Cassidy’s sphincter-tightening speech. It just made sense that that he crash with me while his body adjusted to the meds.

I texted him when I left work, so he was already cleaning up when I got to his studio. On our way to the car, I asked, “You want me to bring you to Daphne’s to pack a bag?”, figuring I’d just throw it out there and see what happened.

“For…”

“I assumed you’d want to stay” _with me_ “at the loft for the next few days.”

“Oh! I… well yeah, I would.”

*

He explained the situation to Daphne while he threw random crap into his shitty duffel bag, and when he went into the bathroom to grab some things, I let Daphne squeeze me tighter than I’d normally tolerate.

“Take care of him, okay? I…”

“I will.”

I had to throw the kid a bone here. Daph and I had forged a morbid bond kneeling on the floor of that parking garage together, and even I wasn’t enough of an asshole to leave her hanging when it came to bashing stuff. As much as I might have wanted to run screaming.

When he’d finished packing – a word I’m using generously here – I gave Daphne a kiss on the cheek, Justin gave her a tight, lingering hug, and we headed out.

*

We dropped his stuff at the loft and changed our clothes before meeting the guys at the diner.

Justin had put on this skintight red t-shirt that perfectly showed off his slim body, and I couldn’t stop touching him. The guys were smirking at each other as they gave us what I assumed they thought were furtive glances, and normally that would have bothered me, but, I don’t know. He’d only been back for a couple of weeks, he looked edible as fuck, and the protective – okay, paranoid – side of me was finding it very hard not to have a hand on him at all times. He hadn’t even dropped down to the lower dose yet, and I was already poised to grab him if he fell.

We all went to Woody’s for a few rounds of pool after dinner, and Justin was flirty and teasing and making everyone laugh; and it was only then that I realized how much they’d all missed him, too. But fuck, anyone would, with that smile and that energy and that fucking incessant cheerfulness.

Of course, the guys had seen him at the diner over the past however many months, and he’d ventured out to Babylon and Woody’s on a handful of occasions that I knew of, but he obviously hadn’t been hanging out with them like he used to. And you don’t not notice when that drops out of your life. Fuck, even Mikey wasn’t immune to his infectious smile tonight. And the stupid thing is, Mikey actually likes Justin when he’s not moronically seeking vengeance on my behalf. He’s just so frequently moronically seeking vengeance on my behalf.

I was even more handsy with Justin after that little revelation, pressing my body up against his and grabbing his crotch when he was trying to make a shot, whispering dirty shit in his ear with my cheek pressed against his and making him blush. And fuck did he look even more beautiful like that, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed and laughing.

I made it to 9:50 before I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I hauled Justin out the front door by his t-shirt, flipping the guys off when they laughed at my eagerness.

*

I sped home, and we took the elevator up mainly so we could spend the ride sucking face. Sort of romantically sucking face, as it turned out. I put my arms around his shoulders and he leaned into my body, reaching up for a slow, deep kiss. He smelled like the cold, his cheeks were flushed from the wind, his pupils were dilated as he held my gaze, hardly any blue visible, and we both felt my cock twitch against his hip.

By the time we reached my floor, all thoughts of deep, romantic kisses had vanished, and he had that hungry, horny, expectant look on his face. His body was almost quivering, he was so desperate for a fuck, and look, say what you will about our age difference – actually, you know what? don’t – but there are serious benefits to fucking a 19-year-old.

As soon as I locked the door behind us, he dropped his jacket and practically slammed into my body, his hands sliding up my chest, pushing my shirt up as he sucked on my lip. He was so fucking horny, already panting and sweating, and I was rock hard in about three seconds. He pushed against me, backing me toward the dining room table, and we staggered toward it, shedding our clothes as fast as we could, our lips and hands all over each other.

He loves when I fuck him on that table. We both do. The angle’s perfect, and his naked body below me on the hard surface is a sight to behold with no sheets or soft mattress to obscure it, and there’s something so insanely hot and primal about fucking in the dining room, like goddamn animals.

He was pulling my hair in a frenzy, pulling me to him, his tongue practically down my throat, so I grabbed his waist – and god his skin was soft – and lifted him onto the table, cupping my hand behind his head as I laid him down as gently as my current level of horniness allowed. I slipped on the condom I’d grabbed when we’d staggered past the counter, and he barely had his legs up before I was pushing a slicked finger into him, working him open as efficiently as my many years in the back room had taught me to. When he started grunting insistently and pushing down on the two fingers inside him, I pulled out and quickly slicked up my cock before pushing into him, resting for a fraction of a second when I was fully seated to let him adjust. But just for a moment, because he let out this rumbling moan that almost pushed me over the edge just from the sound of it alone, so I pulled my hips back and then snapped them forward, fucking into him hard and fast. I’m not sure I could have slowed down if I’d wanted to.

It only took about 30 seconds before he was slamming his arms over his head on the table with his eyes squeezed shut, and I knew he was about to come. His back arched and his legs tensed as he gasped and his eyebrows shot up (a charming quirk of his cum face I’ve always loved), and I stared down at the sweat and cum shining on his chest as he tightened around me and yelled my name. I let his contracting muscles push me over the edge, gripping the sides of the table to stop myself from collapsing on top of him, and a moan caught in my throat as I thrust three more times, threw back my head, and came.

We were both still panting and sweating a minute later when Justin started laughing. “That was fucking incredible,” he gasped, and I couldn’t help laughing at his satisfied tone.

He looked satisfied, too, lying there all sweaty and flushed and dazed. I’ve always loved those times with him, right after we come. With almost everyone else I fuck, I always have a pretty immediate desire to get dressed and get out. Or for them to. But not with Sunshine. Once I’d gotten over my fucking neurosis about forming any sort of attachment to the kid, I’d been able to admit to myself – but only myself, I’m not crazy – that I love when we fall asleep together, all sticky and sweaty with his warm body draped over mine.

I felt his mouth on mine as he kissed me and broke me out of my reverie, then he pulled my dick out of his ass and I helped him slide off the table onto slightly wobbly legs. Once he was steady, he headed toward the bathroom, and I threw away the condom and followed behind him, swatting him on the ass when I caught up in the hopes that he’d flash me a grin over his shoulder. He did, and it was so fucking corny, but his smile lit up the fucking room.

*

So of course, I had to fuck him in the shower. I clutched his hip and shoulder as I thrust into him, my fingers pressing into his wet skin. He was bracing himself against the glass with one arm and reaching back to grip my thigh with the other, and I rocked into him slowly and steadily as he moaned and turned his head, looking for a kiss. I kissed him deeply, starting to thrust faster and reaching down to stroke his cock when I felt myself getting close. He came seconds before I did, his cum still spurting onto the shower wall when I bit down on his shoulder to stop myself from shouting.

He moaned and slumped forward, leaning his forehead on his arm as he trembled through an aftershock. I leaned forward with him, sliding my arm around his chest and slipping my knee between his legs to hold him up, and as soon as I was in position, he leaned back heavily against me, half sitting on my leg, breathing deeply as he came down. His muscles always turn to jelly when he comes, and early on, before we’d gotten the hang of each other, there’d been more than one shower fuck where I’d barely caught him before he’d slid to the floor.

When we were both steady on our feet, I pulled him into the center of the stall to wash his hair, and then we took turns washing each other’s bodies. He swirled the soap around my nipples as he ran his tongue down my stomach toward my cock, taking special care to thoroughly clean the area as he cupped my balls in his hand. This kid, I tell ya.

We spent thirty minutes drying off, locking up, and fooling around, and when I’d rallied, I entered him from behind while we spooned on the bed. His warm, damp skin smelled so fucking good, and I buried my face in his hair while I rocked my hips lazily, slow and deep. We were both tired by this point and I let myself zone out a bit, my mind wandering to how unbelievable the two of us were. How we’d clicked pretty effortlessly from day one; the baby-faced virgin and the stud of Liberty Avenue. We’d known how to make each other feel good almost as if by instinct, even with how utterly and completely inexperienced he’d been, and I was relieved to find that we hadn’t lost that in the months we were apart.

After a while of just… reveling in our connection – and ignoring what a fucking sap I was being – I picked up the pace and slid my hand down his stomach to wrapped it around his leaking cock. I got us both off pretty quickly after a wave of exhaustion hit me, and other than pulling out, we stayed where we are after we came, physically and emotionally drained and in no hurry to move. I cradled a half-asleep Justin in my arms, his body warm and relaxed, and I thought about how awful it had been not being able to put my hands on him like this. My stomach twisted when I thought about how easily I could have been alone in bed right now; how in some alternate universe events hadn’t transpired quite the way they had, and Justin was still crashing on Daphne’s sofa, probably dealing with this seizure shit mostly on his own, and I wouldn’t even know what was going on. Still just exchanging fucking pleasantries with him at the diner.

I tightened my arms around him and brushed my lips along his neck, eliciting a soft, sleepy sigh, and I squashed that depressing and pointless train of thought. I was so fucking happy to be lying there with his warm back pressed against me, his fingers laced through mine, and I forced myself to focus on that.

“You feel okay?” I murmured into his hair, and he turned his head and blinked up at me and smiled.

“Perfect.”

He kissed me softly and ran his fingers up and down my arm, and I fell asleep with my head resting in the crook of his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleh, super sappy ending, huh? Brian’s had an emotional day, we can let it slide.
> 
> Shoutout to Jolieprudence for help with Gus’s toddler-speak. (Full sentences? Single words? Who the hell knows.) <3


	10. Hey Sunshine, you feeling okay?

I woke up slowly the next morning, not bothering to open my eyes while my half-asleep brain wondered vaguely why Justin was moving around so much, and not really awake enough to worry about it. Some hazy, undetermined amount of time later, I finally pried them open to find a still completely asleep Justin rubbing up against me, a sleepy smile on his face while he hummed softly in pleasure and slowly ground his hard cock against my hip.

I glanced at the clock and saw that we still had twenty minutes until the alarm, so I let him enjoy his hot dream while I ran my fingertips lightly up and down his arm and zoned out, letting more of the fucking embarrassing waves of relief and gratitude from last night wash over me. I was brought back to reality with a chuckle when his body tensed against mine, right before he came on my hip and thigh with a soft whimper in the back of his throat. Christ. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had a wet dream.

His body relaxed and he sighed and snuggled into my side, and I chuckled again, this time loud enough to wake him up. He tipped his head back and blinked up at me, smiling sleepily, and I just smiled back, waiting for his reaction as he lazily trailed his hand up my thigh. When he reached where his cum was splattered across my skin, his hand stopped its exploration for a few seconds then cautiously crept upward, his face deepening to a delightful shade of pink when he realized what must have happened.

“Pleasant dream?” I asked, giving him my tongue-in-cheek smirk and he burst out laughing, then he blushed and covered his face with his hands, shaking against me with embarrassed laughter. Precious as hell.

We crawled out of bed a few minutes later when the alarm went off, exchanging spectacular blow jobs in the shower before getting ready for the day. I tried to pretend I wasn’t watching him take his lower dose meds while I brushed my teeth, but he looked up in time to catch the worried look on my face in the mirror, and he gave me a nervous smile. He looked back down at the bottle in his hand, staring at the label, and I was off in my own world wishing I had a valid excuse to stay home from work today – not even because I was that worried he’d have a seizure… okay, not _only_ because I was worried he’d have a seizure, but because I could see how nervous he was – so I was caught off guard when he asked, “When did I piss myself?”, without looking up from the pill bottle.

I took my time spitting and rinsing, trying to buy myself some time to figure out what to say, because I wasn’t sure how he’d handle this. Even with all the questionable shit I’ve done, I’d be embarrassed as fuck if it had happened to me; but honestly, _honestly_ , it hadn’t even occurred to me that he should be embarrassed, and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t. He didn’t have any control over it, and shit happens. It wasn’t a big deal.

“Remember when you had that seizure in the middle of the night, a few days after Babylon? You barely remembered it in the morning, and we didn’t talk much about it.”

It was hard watching his face redden in the mirror.

“Hey, look at me.”

He didn’t.

“It wasn’t a big deal, okay? I changed the sheets and cleaned you up, and we went back to bed.”

I kept my eyes on him, but he didn’t look at me, so eventually I turned to him and ran my fingers through his hair. I tipped his head back until he met my eyes.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said, then I licked across his lips and kissed him. “If it happens again, I’ll take care of it again. I’m not worried about it.”

He wrapped his hands around my forearms and nodded, but he still looked miserable, so I leaned my forehead against his and breathed him in for a minute before we broke apart to finish getting ready.

The switch to the lower dose meant we were both pretty paranoid that day, and I practically swallowed him whole before I let him out of the car at school. We spent the day texting back and forth, neither of us apparently giving a shit that it _might_ be considered rude to text during classes and meetings. It was mostly just pointless shit to keep in touch, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking how he was feeling a few times. The first time, he just answered with a ‘:-) normal’, but the second two times I got a ‘;-) horny’. So that was something.

I breezed into the diner at ten past 6 and watched Debbie glance from me, to the clock, to Justin, who was busy pouring water for a table in the back. When I called, “Hey, Deb,” with my eyes on Justin, I saw him smile at the sound of my voice as he finished pouring the last guy’s water, glance at his watch, and then smile a little wider. Mmhmm Sunshine, big bad Brian’s a hopeless sucker. Old, sad, pathetic news.

“Hey, honey,” Debbie said, coming over as I slid into a booth. “You here for dinner? I don’t think the boys will be here until later.”

“Skipped lunch.”

Not true, but what the fuck else could I say? _Hey Debbie! Just here in case Sunshine has a massive fucking seizure in the middle of the dinner rush, no big deal. Just here because I’m a pathetic paranoid bundle of nerves and I can’t not be here right now._ Yeah, right.

Of course, the asshole took his sweet time actually acknowledging me, and my turkey meatloaf was ready by the time he deigned to come over. He brought it to me with a saunter and a smirk, and when he set it down, he said, “Why Brian, whatever brings you here tonight?” with laughter in his voice.

He was just being a smartass, because no, we hadn’t technically made plans for me to come by after work, but we both knew I would. And if he wanted to be a smartass, I could be one right back; so I grabbed his shirt and pulled him down for an embarrassingly (to him) obscene kiss, squeezing his cock through his jeans and biting his lip before I pulled back. He was blushing when I let him go, and he muttered “asshole” under his breath and swatted me on the shoulder while I smiled innocently, and I laughed when he darted his eyes around to check how many people had seen. I swear, the kid has no problem showing off in the back room, but god forbid I stick my tongue down his throat and feel him up while he’s working.

I ate slowly, flirted outrageously with Justin, and sipped three coffees while I watched the comings and goings and petty diner dramas, until the guys finally arrived and clambered into my booth. They noticed right away that I’d already eaten and had obviously been there for a while, and I studiously ignored the super fucking obvious looks they were trying to be sly about. And why the fuck did it have to be a national headline that I wanted to be around Justin right now? I swear, they acted like they'd caught me out every time I showed even the slightest interest in the boy, and then they wondered why I didn’t go around shouting how much I care. Christ.

When they finished eating, we trooped over to Woody's for a few rounds of pool while Justin finished his shift. I was paranoid as fuck, yeah, but I wasn’t about to spend the whole night sitting in a sticky vinyl booth, soaking in the greasy diner air. Ugh. I did, however, pull Justin aside before we left to remind him to _fucking call me_ if he started feeling the least bit off. 

My phone never rang, but Justin texted around 10:30 to tell me Debbie was letting him off early (slow night), so I said goodbye to the guys and headed back over to pick him up. I watched him take off his apron and kiss Debbie goodbye through the window, tapping the steering wheel in my impatience to get my hands back on him. He looked relieved when he stepped out the door and saw me waiting, and when our eyes met, we both started laughing at how fucking neurotic we were being. Not without cause, but still. We seriously had to chill the fuck out a little.

Twenty minutes later, I was washing the grease stink out of his hair while he trailed his fingertips oh so lightly down my sides, sending a shiver up my spine, and he grinned up at me mischievously when he wrapped his hand around my cock. I was vaguely aware of fumbling to finish rinsing the shampoo out of his hair while he knelt in front of me and took my cock in his mouth, and then it was a while before my world encompassed anything more than my cock, Justin's mouth, and the hot water beating down on us. The bastard brought me to the brink three times before he finally pushed me over the edge, and when I came, I was distantly aware of him pinning me to the wall with his body so I wouldn’t slide down it.

When my eyes focused, Justin was supporting most of my weight and mouthing at my neck, and he laughed at the expression on my face when he felt me moving and pulled back. I kissed him deeply and then sunk down to returned the favor, catching him easily when his knees gave out.

It struck me, not for the first time, how differently Justin and I handle stress. I, as we know, handle it admirably by snapping at those closest to me and slamming doors in their faces. Justin, sure, still has the occasional panic attack, but for less acute stress, he just ups the sweet, cuddliness that he’s already prone to. Much to my delight, not that I will ever fucking tell him that. But the cynical side of me wonders if he reacts that way because on some level, he’s trying to ensure someone’s there for him when he’s having a rough time, like… he’s endearing himself to us. To me. Like if he just acts like a cranky bastard like the rest of us, we’ll abandon him. Or something. But then again, maybe it’s just his personality. 

After we’d dried off and crawled into bed, he threw an arm and a leg over me and rested his head on my chest, absently tracing his fingers up and down my side. See? Cuddly. I wrapped my arm around him and kissed the top of his head, and when I accidentally let out a shaky breath, his fingers paused for a second before resuming their trail up my side. Shit.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You okay?"

"Peachy."

I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t press the issue, and I let out a relieved sigh when he just brushed his lips over my chest and said, “Okay.”

We shot the shit for a while, laughing quietly about Emmett's impromptu dance-off at Babylon the other night, mocking the shockingly tight shirt Ted had worn to go out last week, and the conversation ebbed as we gradually fell asleep.

All wrapped around each other.

Keeping each other safe. 

*

Justin finally told Jennifer on Thursday. He sort of invited himself over to her condo for lunch after his morning class, and he stopped to pick up salads and sandwiches from her favorite café on the way. He called me at work to tell me about it after, and she’d apparently taken the news about as well as you’d expect. I was relieved I hadn’t gone with him when he told me she’d cried, but she had, apparently, taken the news that we were back together very well, and Justin had griped, “seriously, Brian, she was obnoxiously happy that you’re, as she said, ‘taking care of me’,” using sarcastic air quotes. So, score one for Brian, I guess.

So while he was glad to have spent some time with her for the first time in about a month, overall it sounded like the visit was kind of a bummer, and he seemed sort of down when I swept into the diner after work. I wished I could have cheered him up by taking him out and showing him off and blowing him in the back room, but since he was working until midnight, I had to fall back on flirting and groping whenever he came by the table. Which worked surprisingly well, making him blush and laugh and say “Briaaan” in that chastising-but-not-really way he has. 

He was in a decently good mood when I picked him up at midnight, thanks in part to me, I assumed, so I took him back to the loft and fucked him hard in the shower, and we dropped into bed satisfied and exhausted.

*

Nothing had been happening, neurologically speaking, for days, so I was taken aback (and chagrined) when he pointed out how unconsciously clingy I was being during our second shower together after he’d lowered his meds.

I hadn’t even realized I was doing it, so I was surprised when he chuckled and said, “Uhh, Brian?”

“Yeah?”

“I kind of need my arm to wash myself.”

Huh? I peered down at him and shook the water out of my eyes. “What?”

“You haven’t taken your hands off me since we’ve been in here, and you did the same thing last night. Not that I don’t always want your hands on me, but… you need to let go of my arm.”

He shook his arm a little to emphasize his point, and when I looked down, I was surprised to see my hand wrapped around his bicep.

He laughed at the look on my face and teased, “I appreciate your protective instincts, but the solution probably isn’t to surgically attach yourself to me.”

I dropped his arm, muttering “asshole” as he kept laughing and pushed up onto his toes to give me a wet, sloppy kiss.

Fuck. I was slightly more aware of my paranoia after that, and I tried really fucking hard to stop hovering like, I realized with horror, Debbie would. And other than a shit-eating grin thrown my way the next time we got into the shower, he didn’t tease me about it again.

*

The ‘nothing happening’ came to an abrupt, dramatic end on Friday night. And even though we were probably as prepared as we could have been, it scared the everloving shit out of me.

He’d worked a lunch shift so he was off at 5 – and wasn’t scheduled to work again until Sunday, which turned out to be a lucky break – and I had shit to do around the loft (and I was still being a clingy motherfucker, as previously established), so I brought home takeout and we ate together at the (thoroughly disinfected) dining room table while he prattled about his day. We finished pretty quickly, cleaned up, and broke off to do our own stuff; him settling in at his computer to work on an assignment, me trying to organize my disaster of a closet.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed that he’d been a little off since we finished eating, just kind of slow and spacey, but it was in a way that at first I assumed he was just distracted. We’d both had busy days, him with an early morning class, studio time, office hours with this professor he hates, and work, me with back-to-back client meetings and a very satisfying session reaming out Bob and Brad. And he was closing out day three on the lower dose meds without so much as a hand twitch, so I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been. Shit excuse, I know, but you have to understand where my head was.

I was talking to him off and on while rifled through my clothes, and he was taking too long to answer my questions and sounded kind of dreamy and vague when he did, but I wasn’t looking at him, and I was busy thinking about how that one meeting today could have gone differently, and how maybe I needed a new scarf and didn’t green sound nice?, so the implication of his spaciness didn’t hit me as immediately as it should have. When I finally walked over to him and tried to engage him in an actual conversation, I saw that he was sort of staring through his computer, not focusing on the screen. Any other day, that could just be his artist’s eye trying to visualize the image he wanted to bring to life, but today, combined with the way he’d been responding to me for the past twenty minutes and taking into account his recently lowered anticonvulsant… that was unlikely. It fucking finally dawned on me, and my stomach sank.

"Hey Sunshine, you feeling okay?"

He took a beat too long to look up at me, and when he did, he just stared for a good five seconds before saying, "Yeah, why?"

Other than the seizure he almost had at the diner, he hadn’t had this kind of symptomatic warning bell before any of the others, so I didn’t have anything to compare his behavior to. But it matched what we knew to watch for, and he'd sure as hell never acted like this before. Not even on the rare occasions when he’s (carefully, painstakingly) experimented with my vast array of pharmaceuticals.

"You seem kind of out of it. Are you having any of those symptoms the doc mentioned? Ringing in your ears? A metallic taste in your mouth?” I wasn’t even sure why I was asking, because now that I was focused on him, it was absurdly obvious how off he was.

"What?"

He sounded so confused and his eyes weren't really focusing when he looked at me, and it was such a disconcerting contrast to how sharp he usually is. It was really fucking jarring, and I couldn’t believe I’d been worried I wouldn’t notice.

"Yeah, okay, bed."

I grabbed him under his elbows and pulled him up, cursing myself that I hadn’t thought to ask how long of a lag there usually is between the onset of symptoms and the seizure itself. Or if there even is a standard amount of time. I cringed imagining his limbs banging against the wood floor, and I hustled him to the bed as quickly as I could with him stumbling over his own feet.

Someone was on our side though, because he starting seizing _just_ as I was dragging him onto the bed. Which pulled me off balance, of course, so I ended up falling with him, but thanks to my excellent reflexes I didn’t crush him, nor did I get whacked in the face by any of his jerking limbs (though that one was a close call). Not the smoothest of landings, but not bad for my first time. Only time. Oh Christ, hopefully only time.

I managed to roll him onto his side, and I was about to take my hands off him and sit back when I… just didn’t. I left my hand resting – resting, not holding – on his hip, because god. This was nothing like the other seizures he'd had. No question the scariest part was that he sounded like he was choking, and even though I knew to expect it, hearing about it in a doctor's office and actually _hearing it_ from your partner, when you’re the only one around if something goes wrong, are two completely different things. And for the first time, I fully understood why people used to think someone having this kind of seizure was choking on their tongue, because between the terrifying sounds he was making, and the fact that his lips were starting to turn fucking blue right in front of me, I definitely would have thought the same thing. 

But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. I knew that he wasn’t aware of anything right then, let alone that he was having the biggest fucking seizure of his life, but he looked – and sounded, Christ – like he was in pain, and I couldn’t... I didn’t know how to handle knowing that he was lying unconscious on my bed, his body wracked with convulsions, because of _me_.

But that was a guilt trip for another time, so I mentally slapped myself and turned my attention to making sure he got through it okay. Which included, I realized, sliding a pillow under his head so he didn’t hurt his neck where it was straining and curving awkwardly. Jesus. 

After about two and a half minutes – and I have no idea how I'd had the presence of mind to glance at the clock – the seizing very abruptly tapered off and then stopped, and he took a breath just about the second it did. Color immediately started coming back into his face, and he blinked his eyes open and looked around with this confused-as-fuck look, and I wanted to laugh because I was so fucking relieved that he was back with me. But he was obviously confused and afraid, so I held it in.

When his eyes settled on me, he took a shaky breath and slurred, "Br-rian?"

"Hey Sunshine, you're okay. You had a seizure. Everything's okay."

I brushed some hair off his face and tucked it behind his ear, and I rubbed his back a little while he struggled to get his bearings. His eyes wandered around the room, and I could practically see his brain trying to work out what was going on.

“Where are we?”

“We’re at the loft. In my bed. Everything’s okay.”

He looked really fucking out of it.

"What happened?"

"You had a seizure. Remember how you changed your meds?"

He abruptly started crying then, moaning "Nooo," as he scrunched up his face and tears started leaking out of his eyes.

Deep breath, Kinney. _Crying is normal._

"It's okay, Justin, you're fine,” I said a little desperately, and I really hoped he couldn’t hear the uncertainty in my voice. “Do you want to sleep?"

He just stared at me and scrunched up his face again, breathing wetly from the tears and mucus. So…

"Okay, let's get your pants off."

He was wearing jeans, and who the fuck wants to sleep in jeans? But when I reached for his waistband, he pushed my hands away and said, " _No_ ," way more forcefully than I’d have thought he was capable of right then.

"Let me get them off so you can sleep."

"Don't fucking touch me, Brian."

Uhhh... so, okay. Apparently – like the not breathing thing – knowing that he might be an asshole, and knowing how the fuck to _handle_ it are two very different things.

“Okaaay, get under the covers, then, come on,” I said, reaching to help him sit up.

He seemed exhausted despite the burst of anger, blinking in that slow, sleepy way, and he was uncoordinated when he batted my hands away again with a less vociferous, “Get the fuck off!”

And why the fuck was I pushing it? I turned my hands up in surrender and said gently, “Okay, Sunshine, just go to sleep.”

A few more tears leaked out of his eyes while he watched me with this heartbreakingly miserable look on his face. His cheeks were flushed from crying and he looked so small and fragile curled up in the middle of the bed, and I don’t know what in the hell possessed me, but it was like there was a magnet pulling me down to kiss his cheek. His soft, warm cheek that tasted like salt from his tears. I rolled my eyes at myself, because jesus fucking christ, but if I wasn’t allowed to be a goddamn sap _now_ , when was I?

He wasn’t pushing me away anymore, so I went back to slowly rubbing circles on his back until his eyes closed and his breathing deepened. When I was sure he was out, I carefully unbuttoned and pulled off his jeans, and he just sighed a little and curled into a tighter ball. I tucked the blue blanket around him and left him to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d originally planned to bring us through the rest of the evening in this chapter, but I couldn’t make the end bit work and it was driving me crazy. So instead of posting something I semi-hated, I bumped the rest to the beginning of chapter 11 (which is why this chapter is a little shorter than normal). Which I realize I don’t have to explain, but I hope you’ve all enjoyed this superfluous bit of insight into this writer’s (lack of a) writing process. XD

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are kudos are very very appreciated! <3
> 
> Oh! And I have a basically useless Tumblr that you're welcome to check out if you're supremely bored, LostCol over there as well. I occasionally reblog QAF gifs and that's about it.


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